Language and Legislation: Bilingual Education in the United States, Eighteenth Century to the Present

This project is a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between politics and bilingual education in the United States, from the eighteenth through twenty-first centuries. It first examines the historical foundations of public schools in the United States. Then, it analyzes nineteenth century educational policies, focusing on German- and Spanish-speaking students as well as Native American missionary schools. Next, it assesses key court cases and legislation in the twentieth century, including the Bilingual Education Act. Finally, it looks at the current state of bilingual education, examining the issues from both linguistic and political perspectives. This project will assess both English language learning students and native-English speaking students who are learning a second language in order to fully encapsulate the scope of bilingual education. From this historical analysis, the project then begins to assess not just the what, but the why of American bilingual education, analyzing institutionalized racism and issues in research in order to examine the current capacity and controversy of bilingual education in key states. As a whole, the goal of this research is to see not only how politics have affected bilingual education policy, and how those policies have changed throughout time, but ultimately to see how these policies and practices affect students