1.Bilingual Education
A friend or a foe?

2. What led to the Bilingual Education Act?
On July 9, 1868 the 14th Amendment was created which, among other things, guaranteed that no state shall make any law that denies all citizens equal protection under the law.
In 1954 Brown v. Board of Education overruled separate but equal and established that all children have the right to an equal education made available on equal terms.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination in any public facility. Title VI in particular outlawed discrimination on any federally funded program, signifying that all students have the right to meaningful and effective instruction.
The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 provided supplemental funding for school districts to create programs that meet the "special educational needs" of large numbers of children of limited English speaking ability in the United States.
In 1974 this act was amended defining bilingual education as incorporating a students native language, separating it from ESL and English immersion (Mora, 2005).
3. The Bilingual Spectrum
Bilingual Education
ESL or English Immersion
Teaching a child in his or her native language for academic achievement and English proficiency.
Using none of the childs native language for the purpose of assimilating him/her and having him/her gain proficiency faster(Domestic Social Policy Division, 2001).
4. The Unz Initiative
The Unz Initiative was introduced in 1998 by Ron Unz and Gloria Matta Tuchman in California. It maintains that since theCalifornia schools do a poor job of educating immigrant children, which can be seen in low English proficiency and high drop-out rates, bilingual education should be outlawed (California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 2007).
5. What is Dual-Immersion?
According to Linholm (1997) two way bilingual education is the marriage of bilingual education for language minority students and immersion education for language majority students (p. 271). Dual immersion programs include both native English speakers and immigrants. They can have a language ratio of either 90:10 (Native language: English) or 50:50 (Native language: English).
6. Two studies: ELL students in Dual Immersion
Collier and Thomas (2002) compared ELL students in bilingual programs, dual immersion and in English mainstream.
Both the bilingual and the dual immersion programs consisted of a 90:10 ratio (90% target language: 10% English) or a 50:50 ratio (50% target language and 50% English).
The finding of this study was that ELL students involved in one of these types of programs tended to graduate high school above the 50th percentile.
When looking at 5th graders they found that students without any type of bilingual education had lower reading and math scores than those who did(Collier & Thomas,2002)
Ajuria (1994) also looks at ELL studentsin dual immersion programs and the mainstream comparing both voluntary English participation and test taking.
After some time those ELL students in dual immersion saw an increase in their English participation.
On the other hand, no increase in participation was seen in the ELL students in the mainstream.
In her study of test taking she found that test resultson the Iowa Test of Basic Skills were higher for the ELL students in dual immersion than those in mainstream (Ajuria, 1994).
7. What other arguments exist that are pro-bilingual education?
Greene (1998) describes how advocates of banning bilingual education base their view on a limited selection of literature that is often distorted.
Using fourstandards for quality research he found 11 out of 75 studies that met the standards for quality research.
He forms his final conclusions from the test scores of 2,719 students, where 1,562 were enrolled in bilingual programs.
In looking at the results he found that the benefit of using the childs native language in instruction measured a .18 standard deviation on standardized test scores.
His final conclusions are that Bilingual programs produce a .21 standard deviation improvement on reading tests and a .12 standard deviation improvement on math tests measured in English (Greene, 1998).
Martin-Beltran (2009)looks at the benefits of bilingual education from a linguistic developmental and social perspective.
She shows us how bilingual education is not only better for developing a deeper language proficiency, but also utilizes a childs background to make learning important and meaningful.
In her study she observes the interactions within a bilingual 90:10 classroom.
In her observations, she found four recurring behaviors which help build analytical skills,critical thinking skills, collaborative skills, creativity and confidence. All of these help children obtain better test scores.
These behaviors include (1) the interplay of two languages as academic tools, 2) the recognition of learners distinct expertise and linguistic funds of knowledge, 3) opportunities for co-construction of knowledge, and 4) student and teacher strategies that called attention to language. (Martin-Beltran, 2009, p. 31).
8. So what influenced the Unz initiative?
Many people who are against bilingual education referto studies that portray how ELL learners who go through bilingual education have a much lower English proficiency as well as general academic achievement in all areas.
Someof these studies do suggest that the differences in achievement between ELL students in the two programs (bilingual education vs. ESL and English Immersion) decrease as time goes on, however the differences are still evident.
9. Lets compare Literature

While Greene (1998) discusses how opponents of bilingual education base their opinions on flawed studies, Jepson (2009), on the other hand, describes how proponents ofbilingual education base their debate on beliefsvs. empirical evidence (p. 3).

10. In his study, based on empirical evidence, he analyzed the results of 500,000 1st and 2nd grade ELL students on the California English Development Test (CELDT). 11. He found a .3 deviation between those who were in bilingual education and those who were in the programs that instruct only in English. In his study he also notes that the deviation was reduced to .1 in 3rd,4th and 5th, however a difference still remains. 12. In his study he also mentions that this phenomenon is similar for ELL students who participate in two-way bilingual education as well as dual-immersion programs (Greene, 1998).