History of Bilingual/ESL Education in Texas

1. History of Bilingual/ESL Education in Texas

2. Resentment between Anglo-Texans and Mexican-Texans had existed in the state since the earliest settlements; • Turn of the century: Tension is exacerbated by the nationwide xenophobia and nativism; • 1920-1960: • Segregation of Mexican schools • Mexican parents are welcome but language and customs unacceptable • “melting pot” strategies • Poor educational facilities, untrained teachers, shorter school terms and large classes

3. 1964 • Teaching of vocabulary and English language skills is promoted; • Texas has the largest number of Mexican-American students in ESL programs in the south; • The Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is created under the Johnson Administration: • provides equal educational opportunities, • causes a major changed in the perception of minorities, • institutionally segregated schooling ends, • open racism becomes unpopular

4. 1964 cont… • First bilingual district is created (Laredo United Consolidated School District) • 1967 • TEA creates accreditation measures allowing schools to offer instructional programs in two languages • 1968: • Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965)

5. 1970: • Texas Office for Civil Rights: districts with more than 5% national-origin LEP’s are obliged to provide equal educational opportunities (under the 1964 Civil Rights Act): • LEP children can not be assigned to classes for the mentally retarded or excluded from college-level courses; • parents have to be informed of non-English activities; • temporary grouping of special language students is allowed. • 1973: • 243,185 LEP students reported in Texas; 19 school districts seeking funding for bilingual/ESL education

6. 1973: • Texas enacts the Bilingual Education Act: • public schools enrolling 20 or more LEP children in a given grade level must provide bilingual education; • use of the native language for initial instruction to facilitate transfer to the mainstream classroom; • ESL teaching is required for development of English literacy skills • 1974: • Lau v. Nichols assuring the survival of bilingual programs • 1975: • Lau Remedies, guidelines for planning appropriate bilingual/ESL education

7. 1981: • US v. Texas reinforcing bilingual support for bilingual education: • lack of equal education opportunities produces “a deep sense of inferiority, cultural isolation, and acceptance of failure” • 1981: • Castañeda v. Pickard • Bilingual programs must be based on sound educational theory, reflect sound practices and language and academic results • adequate resources and personnel, • 2001: • No Child Left Behind • with its goal of rapid acquisition of English, act opened the path for English-only instruction

8. U.S. Demographics • 2004: • U.S. public schools serve about 5.1 million English language learners (ELL’s); • 145 different languages are spoken among our ELL population; • Spanish is spoken by 80% of the ELL population

9. Texas Student Profile Grades PK-12 • 1,894,108 Hispanic (44%) • 1,676,987 White (39%) • 616,050 African American (14%) • 127,092 Asian (2.9%) • 13,791 Native American (0.3%)

10. Texas PK-12 English language learners (ELLs) 2004-2005 Spanish 603,299 Vietnamese 10,649 Urdu 3,425 Korean 2,841 Arabic 2,689 684,583 Total Identified ELLs)

11. Data presented by the U.S. Dept. of Education – Title III Biennial Evaluation Report, FY 2002-2004 in González, Georgina, Director of BE, TEA, 2005

12. Data presented by the U.S. Dept. of Education – Title III Biennial Evaluation Report, FY 2002-2004 in González, Georgina, Director of BE, TEA, 2005

13. 2004-2005 Academic Excellence Indicator System for Region 8 Link contains information about number of bilingual and ESL students in the Region, compared to the rest of the state; TAKS reports per academic subject, ethnic group, minority, etc: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/aeis/2005/region.srch.html