The "Lau v. Nichols" ruling shows the importance of tailoring programs for local multilingual learners. We used longitudinal data from one school district in California to assess the relationship between attending a school with a language support program and English language arts (ELA) achievement. We found that students labeled an…

The term "newcomers" is commonly used to describe students who have recently arrived in U.S. schools. Depending on usage, newcomers may mean students in their first 6 months in U.S. schools, in their first 4 years, or anywhere in between. A majority arrive speaking little to no English, most are from socioeconomically disadvantaged…

In 1974, the United States Supreme Court ruled in "Lau v. Nichols" that 1,800 Chinese-speaking children in the San Francisco public schools were entitled to English-language instruction or other support to help them understand what was happening in their classrooms. Thirty-six years later, state and local responsibilities to public…

Discusses the definition, recipients, and effectiveness of bilingual education; traces the legal history of the concept and the various attempts in search of a constitutional right to bilingual education; and summarizes the present interpretation by courts. (MLF)

In the wake of the 1974 decision handed down by the Supreme Court in Lau v Nichols, there has been a burgeoning of training programs, workshops, conferences, and graduate programs in bilingual bicultural education. This paper examines some of the sources of these developments and attempts to put theory and practice into historical, cultural, and…

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 manual deals with the Lau Center's technical assistance approach for assisting school districts in their efforts to develop an educational master plan to meet compliance guidelines of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as it pertains to limited or non-English-speaking students. The following areas are addressed: (1) impact of "Lau v.…

There is no inherent conflict between bilingual education and desegregation; only lack of creativity and lack of commitment deter implementation of bilingual programs in racially balanced schools. A review of literature related to the Brown v. Board of Education and Lau v. Nichols decisions revealed that bilingual education and school…

This resource for program planning offers guidelines for providing Nevada's limited-English-speaking (Spanish-speaking and American Indian) students with equal access to quality education. The following chapters are included: (1) "Educating Limited-English-Speaking Students: The Record," (2) "State Board of Education Position on…

This is the first in a series of papers on research, development, and training for bilingual/multicultural education. The first two sections of the paper describe Task Force findings specifying remedies available for eliminating past educational practices ruled unlawful under Lau v Nichols, particularly the section dealing with identification of…