Contested Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States, 1960-2001

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION Bilingual education is one of the most contentious and misunderstood educational programs in the United States because it raises significant questions about national identity, federalism, power, ethnicity, and pedagogy . It raises questions about how one defines an American in general and the role of ethnicity in American life in particular. It also raises questions about relations between federal, state, and local governments and between majority and minority groups. Finally, it raises questions about instructional methodologies and their relationship to immigrant and native children. How do you teach immigrant children in general and how do you teach English to them in particular? Also, how do you teach foreign languages to American children in the elementary and secondary grades? Because of these issues, federal bilingual education policy over the last three and a half decades has had a turbulent and contested history. The contested nature of bilingual education is reflected in its uneven development and in the inconsistent pattern of popular support. In the 1960s and 1970s, bilingual education policy increasingly favored the use of non-English languages and cultures. By the latter part of the 1980s and 1990s, however, non-English languages and cultures played a small and decreasing role in this policy. In the early years, a variety of federal, state, and local agencies, educational groups, and lay people supported bilingual education. This support visibly decreased by the 1990s. The changes in bilingual education, in general, were the result of several forces, including litigation, legislation, a changing political context, and activism on the part of contending groups with competing notions of ethnicity, assimilation, empowerment, and pedagogy. Of particular 1 importance in its evolution was the role played by two major contending groups: the opponents and the proponents of bilingual education. The latter group, comprised of language specialists, Mexican-American activists, newly enfranchised civil rights advocates, language minorities, intellectuals, professional educators, teachers, students, and others, was ideologically opposed to the assimilationist philosophy that underlay the subtractive and conformist policies and practices in the schools. Proponents were also opposed to the structural exclusion and institutional discrimination against racialized groups, and to limited school reform. The proponents not only articulated oppositional ideologies, structures , and policies, they also proposed alternative ones aimed at supporting cultural and linguistic pluralism, a strong federal role, ethnic minority political empowerment, and significant school change. More specifically, they supported perspectives that viewed cultural resurgence as the key to minority academic and socioeconomic success and significant education reform as an instrument of political empowerment. These varied individuals with their multiple perspectives collectively challenged the cultural and political hegemony of the dominant groups by promoting significant educational reforms and by supporting the reintroduction of language, culture, and community into the public schools. Specific reforms were proposed by activists including the elimination of the English-only laws, the enactment of federal and state legislation supporting the use of non-English languages in the conduct and operation of public institutions, especially the schools, and the hiring of minority language administrators and teachers. The opponents of bilingual education, comprised at different points in time of conservative journalists, politicians, federal bureaucrats, Anglo parent groups, school officials, administrators, and special interest groups such as U.S. English, favored assimilationism, the structural exclusion of and discrimination against ethnic minorities, and limited school reform. These individuals and groups were not organized until the late 1970s. In the late 1960s and 1970s, in fact, there was no active or organized opposition to bilingual education although there was significant passive 2 C O N T E S T E D P O L I C Y resistance to the use of non-English languages in the schools and to the use of schools as instruments of minority empowerment. After 1978, however, this group coalesced around several key ideas that included ideological opposition to pluralism, an “intrusive” federal role, minority empowerment, significant language-based school reform, and primary language instruction in public education. The underlying tensions and differences between these contending groups, I argue, led to the development of contested school policy over the years. The following pages provide only a brief sketch of the origins, evolution , and consequences of federal bilingual education policy during the years from 1960 to 2001. They also describe and explain the role played by the contending groups of supporters and opponents in its development . Much more research needs to be done on the details of this history and on those who shaped...