Bilingual Education Act -> NCLB ?

[Mai Kuha]

James Crawford reports (see first URL below) that the Bilingual Education
Act was "eliminated" earlier this year, as a new policy passed. My
understanding is that Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act (see 2nd
URL below) worries Crawford because bilingualism is no longer mentioned,
and this may mean that schools can now get federal funding for
sink-or-swim programs, especially because of the wording of the
"Accountability" section of Title III: "States must establish annual
achievement objectives for limited English proficient students that are
related to gains in English proficiency..."

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/T7obit.htm

http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/esea/progsum/title3.html#top

I have searched the archives of ADS-L and Linguist List, and I have
googled briefly, and it seems that no one else is saying anything about
this, except that the National Association for Bilingual Education is
offering workshops to help people understand Title III. Is the reason that
we haven't talked about this that it's not relevant to ADS-L, or is
Crawford possibly over-stating the importance of the policy change?

-Mai

_________________________________
Mai Kuha                mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu
Department of English   (765) 285-8410
Ball State University