109th Congress (2005-2006)

S. 15 – Quality Education for All Act. Introduced Jan. 24, 2005. Sponsor: Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).

A bill to amend several education laws, including the No Child Left Behind Act, to give school districts greater flexibility in calculating "adequate yearly progress" for students, to ensure that civil rights laws and highly qualified teacher provisions apply to supplemental service providers. It would also authorize grants to state education agencies to develop more valid and reliable assessments for English language learners.

H.R. 224 – Comprehensive Learning and Assessment for Students and Schools (CLASS) Act. Introduced: Jan. 3, 2005. Sponsor: Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH).

A bill to amend the No Child Left Behind Act to prohibit the use of a single test score for high-stakes purposes. Schools would be rated using multiple measures including grades and dropout rates, and would receive credit for improvements rather than meeting arbitrary achievement targets.

H.R. 1177 – State and Local Education Flexibility Act of 2005. Introduced: Mar. 8, 2005. Sponsor: Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE).

A bill that would allow states to give school districts flexibility in designing accountability systems, an approach pioneered in Nebraska. Among other things, it would allow states to exempt ELLs from AYP calculations if students have been enrolled in a school for less than 3 years and if parents and administrators agree that excluding them from achievement tests would be "educationally appropriate."

Key Federal Laws

No Child Left Behind Act (2002)
This is the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, covering most federal programs aiding K-12 schools.

Title III provides formula grants for English learner programs, to be distributed by states on a per-capita basis and requires annual assessments of English proficiency. NCLB neither encourages nor prohibits native-language instruction, but it deletes from the ESEA all references to "bilingual education" and to "bilingualism" as an educational goal. Click here for an analysis of Title III.

Title I provides funding to serve "disadvantaged" students and requires schools to make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) toward full proficiency in language arts and math by 2014. Failure to make AYP brings increasingly harsh sanctions.

Bilingual Education Act (1994)
This was the fifth and final reauthorization of the law, also known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, first passed in 1968.

Title VII was designed to promote education excellence by awarding competitive grants directly to school districts for serving ELLs. Equally important, it placed strong emphasis on professional development programs both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The 1994 reauthorization was the strongest version of the Bilingual Education Act in promoting the goal of bilingualism for English language learners, rather than simply the transition to English.

Native American Languages Acts (1990 and 1992)
The 1990 version of this legislation adopted a broad policy statement requiring the federal government to support the preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages in the United States. The 1992 version created a grant program for that purpose in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Civil Rights Act (1964)
Title VI of this law requires prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or national origin by recipients of government, including the public schools. Title VI was the legal basis for the Lau v. Nichols decision.

Key State Laws

Proposition 227 (1998)
California's anti-bilingual-education initiative, sponsored by Ron Unz, mandates English-only instruction for most English language learners.