This book describes the evolution of bilingual education in the United States, emphasizing its relationship to educational and civil rights reform. Federal, state, and district policies affecting the implementation of bilingual programs are identified, along with related legal, political, demographic, and economic factors and controversies.…

The administrator in a bilingual, bicultural community must act with caution, forebearance, and great understanding, paying intense heed to his community. The term "bilingualism" refers to facility in the use of two languages, ranging from a minimal knowledge of either language to a high level of proficiency in both. "Biculturalism" is a…

The purpose of this project was to design a bilingual/bicultural kindergarten course of study based on the concepts of the Richards Education Through Music Method. This method is rooted in the Hungarian composer-educator Zoltan Kodaly's educational philosophy and was developed in the U.S. by Mary Helen Richards. This is a method of teaching all…

The New England Multifunctional Resource Center (MRC) for Language and Culture in Education is funded by OBEMLA, Brown University School of Education, and the Education Alliance for Equity in the Nation's Schools. The MRC's service area encompasses Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The MRC collects and…

Although policymakers, courts, and advocacy groups have raised awareness of bilingual education, there is a gap between the remedial model and grassroots community views of bilingual education as enrichment. Support for bilingual education must be recontextualized as a strategy for education reform with leadership from language-minority persons.…

The New York State Board of Regents has established that state educational policy and practices must help limited-English-proficient (LEP) students enter the English mainstream as quickly as possible, while regarding the first language as an important cultural asset and a useful academic tool. These policies state the following: (1) all students…

Discusses the evaluation of bilingual education programs, surveys the results of seven bilingual education evaluations, and presents their diverse findings. Argues that such research cannot say whether bilingual education is good or works. Describes a "bilingual immersion" program where language minority and majority students learn from…

This document describes the work of the Spanish Curricula Development Center, a project funded by the Bilingual Education Program Branch of the United States Office of Education. It is the function of the Center to develop multidisciplinary resource kits to help support the major areas of instruction in Spanish at the primary level. Forty-eight…

The following award-winning dissertations in bilingual education are included here: (1) "The 1974 Bilingual Education Amendments: Revolution, Reaction, or Reform" by Susan Gilbert Schneider; (2) "(Memory Organization, Bilingualism, and Interlingual Interference: A Comparative Analysis of the Semantic Distance and Semantic Judgment…

This report consists of papers presented during the 6th annual conference of the Southwest Council for Bilingual Education. Seven papers are included in the report: (1) Community Involvement in Bilingual Programs of Las Cruces Public Schools; (2) Bilingual Education--A Commitment to Community Development; (3) The Commitment of a State Department…

Part 1 of this paper considers conventional bilingual-bicultural programs, observing that there is still much need for improvement. According to the author, successful programs require adequate societal information; a clear understanding between school, home, and community; a satisfactory statement of basic program philosophy, rationale, goals,…

Each edition of the IDRA Newsletter strives to provide many different perspectives on the issues in education topics discussed and to define its significance in the state and national dialogue. This issue focuses on Enlightened Public Policy and includes: (1) Texas Education Policy: Prospects for 2009 (Albert Cortez); (2) Bilingual Education in…

The bilingual education movement, begun in the 1960's and virtually mandated by the 1974 Supreme Court Lau vs. Nichols decision, is highly controversial due to public perceptions of bilingual programs; the apparent departure from traditional school language policy; and the concept of bilingual education as a strategy for realizing the social,…

This report evaluates the bilingual education policy of ten states (Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas), in which 86 percent of the nation's limited-English-proficient (LEP) students reside. The report answers frequently-asked questions about bilingual education, and…

Comparing data from two ethnographic studies of bilingual teachers and their students in the United States, the authors present a cross-case analysis that illuminates how issues of language are inextricably linked with issues of race, class, and socioeconomic status. The authors show how portraits of teachers' practice help to examine some of the…