Bilingual education: lessons from abroad for America's pending crisis.

• Author: England, Travis W.

INTRODUCTION

Bilingual education has been the cause of much debate in the United States over the last several decades. As the country continues to see a proportional increase in its minority populations, especially those that have recently emigrated from non-English speaking nations, the debate over the necessity and practicality of a bilingual educational system will likewise grow more prevalent. (1) In fact, recent studies have shown that immigrant children are "the fastest growing sector of the U.S. child population." (2) Although at its birth the United States faced a rich ethnolinguistic diversity and employed a multitude of educational policies, the country has largely seen the assimilation of linguistic minorities into the larger English-speaking majority. (3)

However, as the United States faces increased linguistic diversity, bilingual education will undoubtedly reemerge as an issue of national importance. Facing the issue of linguistic heterogeneity, lawmakers might benefit from an examination of the policies of other nations that have historically dealt with large populations of linguistic minorities. This Note offers a comparative analysis of the bilingual education policies enacted in several other nations that have faced the challenge of effectively educating significant populations of linguistic minorities. In the end, my analysis offers suggestions of how policymakers in the United States might best learn lessons from the experiences of these nations.

In Part I, I will present a concise overview of the history of bilingual education in the United States and the controversial state initiatives that have fomented to mandate certain forms of bilingual education in the last several decades. In Part II, I will examine the heated debate that has occurred over the effectiveness of various iterations of bilingual education policies throughout the states. In Part III, I will undertake a comparative analysis of the policies of several other nations that have had to address the needs of linguistic minorities. Specifically, I will analyze the policies of South Africa and Singapore. Within this analysis, I will present a succinct context to the social, political, and legal issues driving bilingual education policies within each country. I will identify the policies' purported goals, the policies that have been undertaken in an effort to attain these goals, and the measured and perceived outcomes of the policies to date. I will conclude the analysis with recommendations to policymakers in the United States in crafting successful, equitable, and politically feasible policies that better address the needs of linguistic minorities in achieving proficiency in English and ensure adequate educational opportunities. Ultimately, I conclude that the lack of ideological consistency in bilingual education policies has significantly impaired the ability of school systems to meet these needs. As such, a more cohesive policy should be put in place to provide bounded guidance to the states in promoting effective means to educate language minorities.

1. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

   1. Historical Development

      Many authors have reviewed the historical development of bilingual education in the United States. (4) At its origin, the country faced robust linguistic diversity and concomitant policies favoring instruction in multiple languages. (5) However, such diversity and support for bilingual education markedly subsided throughout the nineteenth century as concerns for seeking a common language increased and economic and historical factors coincided to position English as a dominant language of government. (6)

      During the first part of the twentieth century, states enacted restrictive policies regarding instruction in foreign languages and the education of language minorities. Several states even enacted prohibitions against the teaching of foreign languages. (7) Most notably, one such law in Nebraska led the United States Supreme Court to hear its first case to address the topic of bilingual education: Meyer v. Nebraska. (8)

      In Meyer, the Court overturned the Nebraska conviction of a teacher prosecuted for teaching a ten-year-old to read German under a law prohibiting such action. (9) The Court held that the teacher's right to pursue the vocation of foreign language instruction was protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. (10)

      Subsequently, increased immigration of non-English speakers during the twentieth century prompted Congress to take action. (11) To address this issue and burgeoning bilingual programs in certain states, Congress enacted the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 (BEA). (12) The BEA was the first to provide federal assistance to state educational authorities for establishing bilingual programs. As originally drafted, the bill established the goals of maintenance of bilingualism in students who already knew another language, but the text of the legislation that was eventually enacted was redrafted to replace this goal with one of English language proficiency. (13) The BEA remained ambiguous as to the policies it expected states to pursue in achieving this goa1. (14) It did, however, persuade states to rethink increasingly prevalent policies that called for instruction solely in English. (15) Although the BEA initially remained neutral on the specific policies to be imposed within the states, a 1974 amendment (16) required local authorities receiving federal funding to follow the "transitional bilingual education" model of instruction. (17) Transitional bilingual education calls for the use of the native language of language minority students in a separated setting while they are learning and first using English, with a subsequent transition into mainstream classes with other language majority students after English proficiency is obtained. (18) It is only one of various methods of bilingual instruction, however, and states have experimented with numerous alternatives. (19)

      In 1974, the United States Supreme Court significantly addressed the subject of bilingual education in Lau v. Nichols. (20) Lau involved a challenge to practices of the San Francisco school system, which offered assistance to Spanish-speaking students, but not to Chinese-speaking students. (21) The suit was brought on behalf of 2,856 Chinese-speaking students within the school system. (22) The plaintiffs argued that such practice was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Office for Civil Rights' (OCR) interpretation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. (23) OCR's interpretation allowed a finding of a violation if discriminatory effect was shown. (24) On appeal, the Ninth Circuit found for the school district. (25) The Supreme Court, however, held the policy of the school district violated Title VI, under which federal regulations required the school district to take "affirmative steps to rectify the language deficienc[ies]." (26) However, the Court declined to base its ultimate holding on equal protection grounds, instead relying solely on Section 601 of the Civil Rights Act (CRA), which allows a finding of violation upon discriminatory effect, "even though no purposeful design is present." (27) The holding was celebrated by supporters of bilingual education. (28) However, while some courts used Lau as an opportunity to mandate transitional bilingual education programs, (29) others interpreted the same opinion so as to limit support for such programs. (30)

      Subsequent to Lau, Congress sent another important message about its views of bilingual education in enacting the Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1974. (31) The Act effectively codified the decision in Lau, and included in its definition of denial of equal educational opportunity "the failure by an educational agency to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by students." (32) Whereas Lau remained nebulous in defining exactly what policies were required of states, subsequent guidelines published by the OCR called for the use of two languages in instruction as the preferred method of implementation. (33) States subsequently enacted legislation to conform to these guidelines, which were vigorously enforced by the OCR. (34) Many of these programs were transitional bilingual education programs, teaching children in their native language while gradually introducing English over a period of several years. (35)

      Despite the development of this case law and legislation during the 1970s, states were still left with a fairly ambiguous yardstick against which to measure their programs. (36) In 1981, Castaneda v. Pickard (37) established the standards under which educational programs for bilingual students were to be evaluated pursuant to the Equal Educational Opportunities Act and helped to clarify, to some degree, what was meant by "appropriate action." There, Mexican-American families brought suit against the Raymondville, Texas, Independent School District, alleging that the district's educational policies and practices were racially discriminatory. (38) court established a three-step test for determining whether "appropriate action" was being taken by school districts under the Equal Educational Opportunities Act. (39) In examining whether a school district has violated the Act, courts should first examine whether the district's system is based upon "sound[] ... educational theory or principles." (40) Next, courts should look to whether the school district's programs and practices are "reasonably calculated to implement effectively the educational theory adopted by the school." (41) Finally, the courts should look to whether the program "fails, after being employed for a period of time sufficient to give the plan a legitimate trial, to produce results indicating that the language barriers confronting students are actually being overcome." (42) The court...