This brief details the history of the federal government's stance with language minority students, and analyzes the implications of changes to its guiding principles made by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. With every federal re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act prior to 2001, the importance of bilingual education had progressively appreciated. It had evolved into a program that, while giving schools greater flexibility in terms of types of programs offered, provided greater recognition of the societal benefits of bilingualism for all students, and increased support for developmental bilingual and dual-language immersion programs. This brief also brings to light the troubling issues with NCLB. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table, and 138 notes.) [For Executive Summary, see ED508473.]