How English-language learner education has changed since the 1950s

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw an influx of new immigrants to the U.S. Unlike previous groups from northern Europe, most new arrivals during this time did not speak English. This led to an "Americanization movement" focused on ironing out the cultural differences newcomers introduced and assimilating them into the "traditional" American identity, notably through language.

The 1917 Immigration Act excluded immigrants to the U.S. who did not speak English. Through 1922, over 30 states legally mandated that immigrants who did not speak or read English attend public classes. Non-English speaking children were thrown into exclusively English-speaking classrooms and put through testing in English without any accommodation for translation. Consequently, many immigrant children were classified as in need of special education or otherwise ranked far below their intelligence levels, due solely to their underdeveloped English skills.

By the middle of the 20th century, it was clear that assimilation-based English instruction was stunting the educational growth of immigrant children. The 1968 Bilingual Education Act marked the first time that the U.S. government recognized the need for specialized instruction for non-English-speaking students. It came on the heels of Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough's introduction of a bill in 1967 geared at addressing the needs of the rising Mexican immigrant population in his state. Yarborough's bill recommended funding to develop bilingual education programs and resources, an initiative the BEA copied.

Notably, however, neither Yarborough's bill nor the BEA upheld bilingual education as enriching or of value in and of itself; instead, it was seen as a remedial solution to the perceived issue of immigrant students' lack of English proficiency.

In the decade following the Bilingual Education Act's passing, the value of bilingual education became more evident, and new programs emerged centered on tapping into its potential. In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in Lau v. Nichols that when the San Francisco Unified School District denied nearly 3,000 students of Chinese descent instruction in English, it violated their right to an equal education. Subsequently, bilingual education programs were developed by the Center for Applied Linguistics to ensure "understandable instruction to students of limited English ability" was accessible.

Additionally, the CAL published a series of studies examining the value of bilingual education from social science-, linguistic-, education-, and law-based perspectives. In 1974, the BEA was reauthorized to incorporate Lau v. Nichols' view of bilingual education equating to equal educational opportunity for non-English-speaking children.

By the 1980s, however, the esteem that bilingual education had accumulated began to wane, largely due to a round of studies conducted by the federal government. In 1980, the Department of Education commissioned a literature review on the effectiveness of bilingual education over English-language immersion programs. The review concluded there was insufficient evidence proving the former was an effective approach.

The following year, largely due to backlash from educators, the Education Department blocked the implementation of Lau v. Nichols, which would have made bilingual education widely mandated in schools. Instead, it gave school districts more discretion in its approach. President Ronald Reagan scoffed at the idea of bilingual education, characterizing it as "absolutely wrong and against American concepts to have a bilingual-education program that is now openly, admittedly dedicated to preserving native language and never getting adequate in English."

From 1980 to 1986, the Reagan administration scaled funding for bilingual programs back from $167 million to $133 million.

By the turn of the decade, the pendulum swung even further back in favor of English immersion over bilingual education programs. In 1994, the Bilingual Education Act was once again reauthorized, but this time "introduced new grant categories, set up a preference to programs promoting bilingualism, and took into account indigenous languages."

In 1998, Proposition 227 was passed in California, mandating that non-English speakers learn the language "overwhelmingly in English through immersion programs." Under the act, bilingual instruction was allowed only under special circumstances and required a waiver stating that immersion courses were truly ineffective.

The start of the 21st century echoed the beginning of the 20th in that assimilation was again held up as a valuable "fix" for immigrant youth. In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, which eradicated the word "bilingual" from the Bilingual Education Act entirely. Under the NCLB, states are required to implement and report on standardized testing in K-12 classrooms and may face funding and resource penalties for consistently underperforming. This effectively enforced rapid assimilation for non-English-speaking students who would struggle to meet exclusively English testing requirements under bilingual instructions.

Although the NCLB does not mandate that bilingual education programs undergo similar standardized testing, English-language learners' performance still affects a school's overall assessment, thus turning "the question of whether or not a school receives a failing label into a question of how many ELLs attend."

New interest in the possible benefits of speaking multiple languages was revived in the 2010s, proposing, for the first time, that bilingual programs could have inherent value on their own, rather than simply being "remedies" for the perceived "problem" of a lack of English proficiency among immigrant children. Eugene E. Garcia's "Teaching and Learning in Two Languages" established that bilingual instruction not only improved English language acquisition for non-English speakers, it also raised their self-esteem.

The 2012 study "The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual" by Viorica Marian and Anthony Shook provided a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits of bilingualism, noting that speaking multiple languages resulted in improved cognitive function, a better environmental adjustment in infants, and limited cognitive decline in the elderly. Further studies proved that bilingual individuals were more adept and flexible in social situations, able to better pick up on social cues, and switch between situations with ease.

Today, bilingual education has reemerged, and not simply as a tool to achieve increased English proficiency. Instead, it is increasingly recognized as a valuable educational resource for both nonnative English speakers and native English speakers alike, with social and cognitive benefits as well as linguistic.

Arizona is currently the only state in the country left with a bilingual education ban still in place. As of April 2021, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin require school districts to offer bilingual education if a certain threshold of non-English-speaking students have enrolled. In 41 other states and Washington D.C., districts are free to choose whichever language instruction they prefer, explicitly listing bilingual education as a permissible option.

Data reporting by Sam Larson. Story editing by Brian Budzynski. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Elizabeth Ciano.