Vandreia Montano

ESC 708
Spring 2015
Bilingual Education in the U.S.
In the article A Brief History of Bilingual Education in the United States by Nieto
(2009) the author gives a short overview about the American history and the bilingual education
in the country. As in introduction, the author explains that multilingualism has been a
characteristic of the country which has been receiving immigrants from all over the world
throughout history. On the other hand, the new immigrant populations linguistic assimilation to
the English language has been fast; usually the 3 rd generation of the immigrant population is
already linguistically assimilated. The major concern presented in the article is regarding the lack
of attention to the benefits of bilingual education to help the new immigrant population to
succeed in the American schools and to have a place in the American society.
As it is explained in the article, the use of the English language as an American identity
goes back in the history of the country. Prior to the twentieth century the U.S. government
imposed the use of the English language to the Native American population as well as to the new
incorporated Southwest territory. Native American kids were sent to boarding schools to learn
English and new immigrants had to speak English in order to start the naturalization process.
With the Nationality Act in 1906 English was the only language taught in school, and there was
an empiric notion of the correlation between bilingualism and inferior intelligence.
Nieto (2009) also explains that around 1954 with the case Brown vs. the Board of
Education actions against segregation in public schools started to happen and culminated with

the Civil Rights Act in1964. The Civil Rights Act VI, regarding education became the initial step
to Bilingual Education in the U.S, which was implemented later, in 1968, and is known as Title
VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This act brought some improvement for the
non-English speaking population. Schools were funded and encouraged to change their
methodology and implement programs focused on bilingual education. In 1974 the Bilingual
Education Act was revised defining bilingual education, stipulating goals and asking for progress
reports from the programs.
Furthermore, in the eighties, bilingual education was being questioned and criticized and
there were some attempts to make English the official language of the U.S. In 1994, with the
Improving Americas Schools Act bilingual education gained a new perspective as a way to
also improve the countrys outlook besides helping the immigrant population to learn English.
This mentality did not last too long and by the end of the nineties bilingual education was banned
in California followed by the states of Arizona and Colorado. In 2002 the No Child Left Behind
Act and its high-stakes tests promoted English-only instruction and disabled bilingual programs.
Besides describing all these important events in the bilingual education history in the
U.S., the author also presents a brief explanation on the controversial arguments on the Bilingual
Education issue. Some studies show its benefits to the students language development and their
performance in high-stakes tests while others show that it delays the second language
acquisition. Nieto also points out that the Bilingual Education issue goes beyond the school
setting and it is a political and national identity matter. It is explained that Bilingual Education
has shown to be a successful program to foster language and content knowledge.
To sum up, in the article Nieto (2009) presents some important data regarding bilingual
education in the United States and discusses some relevant issues, such as the lack of attention to

the benefits of bilingual education programs to help newcomer students to learn the English
language and prepare to function in the American schools and society.

References
Nieto, D. (2009). A brief history of bilingual education in the United States. Perspectives on
Urban Education, 61-72. Retrieved from
http://www.urbanedjournal.org/sites/urbanedjournal.org/files/pdf_archive/61-72-Nieto.pdf