Bilingual Education as a Linguistic Human Right

People of California have decided to eliminate public school bilingual education. This decision was made in June, 1998, when 69% of the total votes said "yes" to the proposition 227. This paper presents arguments for providing bilingual education to language minorities. It is reported that more and more non-English speaking students master English by being given instructions in their mother tongues. It is also known that bilingual education helps language-minority students better understand subjects including English. These findings support bilingual education. In addition, Lau v. Nichols decision made by the US Supreme Court in 1974 and the notion of linguistic human rights present argument for providing non-English speaking students with opportunities to learn their mother tongues and/or to have instructions in their primary languages. The conclusion is, therefore, the proposition 227 should be declared invalid