Britt Sjostrom

7/31/16
United States legal decisions have had tremendous effects on
education throughout history. I will focus mainly on legal decisions
effecting language diversity. Changing localized political, social, and
economic forces, rather than any consistent ideology, have shaped the
nations response to language diversity. Language ideology has shifted
according to changing historical events. (Ovando 2003) Historical
events and legal decisions have shaped education, and have made my
life as a teacher the way it is today. I find myself sometimes baffled
and frustrated with situations in the educational system. This
happened more so when working in the inner city schools in Boston.
Seeing the disparities in my classroom compared to other classrooms I
had experienced made me wonder How did education end up like
this? and How is it possible that this is sufficient for my ELLs? Where
are these students advocates? Why is the system set up to make it so
hard for them? The more it wracked my brain from day to day I came
to realize that it has been a long process a journey that has taken a
long time but is not even close to being over. Reading about what it
looked like in the past and what rights my students didnt have in the
past I am grateful for how much progress we have made. On the
other hand I see we have so much further to go. I realize that change
has happened over time because of people that are brave enough to
speak up, by people that come together for a common cause and
stand united to fight for the rights of our students. I have also come to
understand that my frustrations about the system will not change by
staying silent. Those who have the power to make legal decisions
realistically often dont know what its like to be in a classroom. They
look at students as numbers and statistics and often make decisions
accordingly, without taking into consideration the individual precious
lives these decisions effect. But truth cannot be ignored and over
time people have realized that bilingual education and pluralism
produces better results. Needless to say, progress has been made and
the history of legal cases behind bilingual education is important to
understand.
Ill start with legal decisions early on in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Ovando describes this time as being seen by many as a
period of general linguistic tolerance. However, many things
happened during this time that effected education. In the 1880s
many repressive policies came about. For example, in order to
civilize American Indians, many repressive Indian languages policies
came out. Later on, during the two world wars, a need was felt to
unite the country. There were even Americanization classes for
immigrants to prepare them for American life. The classes were
ethnocentric and had the idea that American culture was better than

theirs. They felt that it was the responsibility of the new immigrant to
do what ever they needed to do to assimilate properly.
World War II was a time when the United States felt a strong
push to prioritize education because of diplomatic reasons and things
like competing with other countries with discoveries (Sputnik). Thats
when the National Defense Education Act came about in 1958, which
was supposed to put a focus on getting foreign-language teachers.
Then, the 1965 Immigration Act brought many Asian and Latin
American immigrants, which brought a demographic shift that caused
a need for more bilingual instruction. (Ovando 2003)
Bilingual education in the United States also grew during the
Cuban Revolution of 1959. Many exiled Cubans began to live in Florida
during this time. They continued to teach their children in Spanish as
they thought there stay in the US would only be for a short time. The
Cuban community established a highly successful two-way bilingual
education program. (Ovando 2003) This program paved the way for
many bilingual immersion programs in the US. The Bilingual Act
followed shortly after in 1968. This act was thought of as being a bit
vague in its goals, however, it was an extremely important milestone in
rights for language-minority students. As Ovando (2003) states, the
Bilingual Education Act marked a significant first step in moving away
from the Darwinian sing-or-swim educational practices so prevalent
from the 1880s through the 1960s. Language minority students
ancestral languages and cultures were recognized in some form in the
contents and processes of school life. Programs started that sought
to address the academic, linguistic, sociocultural, and emotional needs
of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
(Ovando 2003) The Bilingual Education Act started something that has
come very far since it started.
The next significant case in bilingual education was the 1974
Supreme Court case Lau v. Nichols. As Ovando (2003) states, the Lau
decision can be seen as the most important and enduring legal symbol
through which the civil rights of language-minority students will
continue to be deliberated in the years to come. It was a case that
raised awareness to nation about the need for bilingual education. It
basically recognized that the equal treatment of English-speaking and
non-English-speaking students did not mean that that they had equal
educational opportunity. They recognized that if you cant understand
the language, youre not going to learn from it! After that it led to the
Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974, which basically expanded
the jurisdiction to all public schools. The second most important court
decision influencing education in the English language according to
Ovando was the Castaneda v. Pickard case of 1981. This basically
established a 3 step test to hold schools accountable for the rights of
the language-minority students.

During the time after these cases, there have been many
bilingual programs that have developed. There are structured
immersion programs, partial immersion programs, transitional bilingual
programs, maintenance or developmental bilingual education, and two
way immersion programs. I have personally had structured immersion
programs and the two-way immersion program. The structured
immersion program was called Sheltered English Instruction at my
school in the Boston Public Schools. My students were given specializes
ESL instruction without the use of the native language. My current
school in California has a Two-Way Immersion Program. It is currently
starting in kindergarten and will expand each year to a new grade. I
have seen positive sides of both programs and feel that they are both
effective in different ways.
After a while people began to seek a return for the days of
Americanization and the melting pot theory. There were groups that
were formed such as English First and English Only. In 1994,
Proposition 187 was approved which was an effort to combat illegal
immigration with strong restrictions on services that undocumented
immigrants could receive. As Ovando (2003) states, English Only, US
English, English First, Proposition 187, Proposition 227, and the
proposed riders to federal bilingual funding can be seen collectively as
instruments of the politics of resentment toward massive immigration
from developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s, especially from
Asia and Latin America. Basically, the ones who had to suffer from
these legal decisions and groups were the innocent children. It seems
wildly unfair that a child should be the one to suffer and lose
educational rights from a series of mistakes made by adults.
Legislative measures such as this make you wonder when the last time
the people who made them were actually in a classroom especially in
a classroom full of eager to learn undocumented immigrant children.
In conclusion, it is clear that legal decisions historical events in
the United States have shaped education and bilingual education as it
is today. The effects of political and legislative measures are
undeniable and it sends a message to teachers to take part in the
decisions that effect their and their students everyday lives.