As the 1968 Bilingual Education Act (BEA) reaches its 50th anniversary, we provide a critical historical review of its contradictory origins and legacy. By distilling the BEA's history into three periods that we label "power to the people," "pride for the people," and "profit from the people," we demonstrate that the…

Derrick Bell's interest convergence thesis is a seminal framework to analyze social change within critical race theory. While interest convergence's influence has grown, two foundational questions have been raised: do interest groups act rationally; does interest convergence also offer a change prescription or only an explanation of prior events.…

School desegregation can no longer continue to be an exclusive black and white issue. With demographers predicting that Hispanics will be the largest minority in the U.S. at the turn of the century, educators are facing the difficult challenge of integrating this minority into the mainstream of American education. Despite a quarter century of…

This analysis explicates the federal legislation which is the foundation for many bilingual education efforts in the United States today. The first section sets forth the political background that led to the passage of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. This background information considers the experiences of the Hispanic population in the…

The Bilingual Individualized Instructional Management System operated in one Detroit (Michigan) public school. Materials and assistance were also offered to one parochial school. The approach employed a comprehensive and individualized learning system to provide concentrated instruciton to 150 children in grades Kindergarten through five who were…

Bilingual education has had great impact on education in the United States. Bilingual education programs have existed since 1845. Between 1854-1877, eight states enacted laws stipulating that local school boards had the power to require English-German bilingual programs. Many bilingual education programs were created, thrived, and eventually died;…

This collection includes several papers each on the legal aspects of bilingual education, the politics of implementing bilingual programs, the role of the community in establishing and maintaining bilingual programs, and bilingual program models. In addition, individual papers treat: (1) the impact of research on programs and policy, (2) the role…

A study of basic Title VII programs examines salient program features, including grade levels served, enrollment characteristics, staff experience, and technological features of bilingual programs. A typical Title VII (Spanish-English) bilingual program is summarized. Data reveal that English is used more often than Spanish in most bilingual…

The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 (also know as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) recognized that the educational needs of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students could not be met by traditional, English-only instruction. This legislation provided funding to state education agencies and local school districts to…

This is an evaluation report on a Title VII bilingual program that was conducted in Community School District 30, Queens, in New York City during 1980-81. The report states that the program served pupils of limited English capacity whose native languages were Greek, Chinese, Italian, and Spanish. The program's goals, activities and structure are…

Since the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Education has enthusiastically embraced bilingual education. In this paper, the author evaluates the federal bilingual education program. Based on her studies of the implementation of bilingual education in California, Massachusetts, and New York City, she concludes that the program is of dubious value. She…

Despite the rhetoric as to its importance, this analysis concludes that there is no federal interest in promoting meaningful, substantive parent-community involvement in bilingual education. The absence of policy, data, theory, specifically worded governing rules and regulations, established models of involvement, training programs, or technical…

Summaries of current research on aspects of urban and minority education are compiled in these fact sheets. The first report provides guidelines for counseling in a multicultural educational setting, and outlines what counselors should know about and what they can do for students of culturally different backgrounds. The second report, which…