A student who did not understand the English language and was not provided a bilingual education was thought to be precluded from a meaningful education (Delgado, Perea and Stefancic, 2008). The fundamental question in all of these cases is do schoolchildren and their parents have a right to public education in Spanish for all or part of the school day? How does a school take a group immigrant youth who cannot speak, much less read or write English and educate them so that the vast majority is able to pass demanding standardized examinations in content areas such as math, science, history and English? How does such a school achieve a drop-out rate significantly lower than the local average for comparable students, a graduation rate significantly higher than the local average for comparable students, and an excellent attendance record and college acceptance rate? These are all very important questions that have been at the heart of the bilingual education debate for years (Garcia and Bartlett, 2007)? Court cases over the years have both empowered and disempowered Latino's in their struggle for education in the United States
Bilingual education is advantageous for our country and enables students to learn English as well as keeping their native tongue for future success in our global economy. Bilingual education works in our society and should stay intact within the schools and should be funded to enable students who wish to take these classes should be able to (Hosterman, 2006)
The appellate court held that there was no constitutional violation or violation of § 601. The appellate court held that all students had different educational advantages and disadvantages (Lau v. Nichols, 1974)
In the classroom, an 1839 Ohio law allowed for instruction in German, English, or both according to what ever the parents of students wanted. At the turn of the century, six hundred thousand elementary students received all or part of their education in German which is thought to be more than receive Spanish-English instruction today (Leal and Hess, 2000)
In this case the ruling outlined a three-pronged test for programs that adequately meet the needs for language minority students. This set the standard for what constituted appropriate action on the part of school districts (Mora, 2002)
The court also stated that it did not violate Title VII because it would not inevitably result in an adverse effect, exclusion, denial of benefits, or discrimination and it did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because the Equal Protection Clause is not violated by the mere retracting of legislation or policies that were not required by the Federal Constitution in the first place. In this case the court denied the LEP students motion for a preliminary injunction (Valeria G. v. Wilson, 1998)
The court upheld the judgment of the district court, saying that the school district had not engaged in any discriminatory employment practices which had unfavorably affected the quality of educational opportunities given the Mexican-American children. The Court held that the district court's findings were not erroneous (Otero v. Mesa County Valley School District, 1980)
In the case of language ideology and identity of Latinos in the United States, research has emphasized the power of language ideologies in Latinos' language choices and how these are tied to acceptance or resistance of particular identities. Additionally, sociolinguistic ethnographies of educational settings have demonstrate that language ideologies play a major role in determining which languages are privileged and legitimated in interactions that take place between teachers and students (Pastor, 2008)
The Bilingual Education Act was an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, intended to help poor Mexican-American children learn English. The goal was not to keep any specific language alive but to just to try to make all children fully literate in English (Porter, 1998)
The court held that the district court's action was proper given the longstanding tradition of discrimination by the public schools and the creation of a mere token plan as a remedy. The court affirmed the district court's decision (Serna v. Portales, 1974)
More recent studies have shown that the relationship between LEP status and dropouts is likely to be unauthenticated, and are more a function of socio-economic status, immigrant status, and gender. Many of these studies also find a positive relationship between bilingualism and school completion in which the students who speak two languages are less likely to drop out (Theobald, n
Since the 1970's, courts have permitted laws that have limited marriage to opposite-sex couples. Today the debate continues surrounding same sex couples and the recent events in California and across the nation have really fueled the fire (Borton, 2008)