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The Naturalization Act of 1906 was a pivotal moment in the history of bilingual education. Before the 20th century, linguistic diversity was largely accepted save for a few exceptions. At the turn of the 20th century, an increasing number of immigrants led to fears of foreigners and the call for assimilation. This Naturalization Act of 1906 was one of the first laws in the United States related to English language enforcement, requiring immigrants to speak English in order to pursue citizenship or naturalization (Baker & Wright, 2021).

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Mendelsohn, T. (2023, November 23). Bilingual Education Act of 1968 | History, Summary & Impact. Study.com. https://study.com/academy/lesson/bilingual-education-acts-of-1968-1974.html 

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After a largely assimilationist beginning to the century, American law began to loosen regarding English only education. The Bilingual Education Act, proposed in 1967 by Senator Ralph Yarborough, was enacted in 1968 as an extension of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This was a law authorizing the use of federal funds to support bilingual education. While there were examples of bilingual education receiving public money, such as bilingual schools in Florida, this law included bilingualism as federal educational policy (Baker & Wright, 2021).

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Lau v. Nichols was an important point in bilingual education because it attempted to create a federal policy not just for the allocation of public money for bilingual education, but attempted to set standards for how to instruct ELLs. The Supreme Court found that ELLs were not receiving adequate instruction by being mainstreamed into English-only classes and that ELLs need bilingual education. This decision let to the creation of the Lau remedies which included ESL classes and bilingual education (Baker & Wright, 2021).

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Bacon, D. (n.d.). 28 No on 226 & 227. dbacon.igc.org. Retrieved October 14, 2025 from https://dbacon.igc.org/Students/stud28.html

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The state of bilingual education today can't be explained without highlighting setbacks to bilingual education. Bilingual education was chipped away at during the Reagan years of the 1980s leading to the end of the 1990s, where three important ballot measures were proposed and passed in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts. These ballot measures, named Proposition 227 (California, 1996), Proposition 203 (Arizona, 2000), and Question 2 (Massachusetts, 2002), all looked to essentially outlaw bilingual education in favor of monolingualism. These three propositions are important to show how quickly the tides turned against bilingualism in just 35 years and are representative of the national attitude towards bilingual education during the period of the 1970s-2000s (Baker & Wright, 2021).

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Ravitch, D. (2018, January 8). Today Is The Anniversary Of The Worst Federal Education Law Ever Passed. Huffpost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/no-child-left-behind-anniversary_b_5a538591e4b003133eca7a05

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No Child Left Behind (NCLB) eliminated Title VII (the Bilingual Education Act) of the ESEA, instead changing it to Title III. Title III allocates money for Limited English Proficient students, which is problematic for two large reasons. 1. It views children from a deficit perspective, and 2. It only focused on English language acquisition. With this, educational policy in the United States shifted in just 35 years from one which highlights bilingualism to an assimilationist policy focused on English only. NCLB represents the nadir of which bilingual educational policy is still struggling to return from today (Baker & Wright, 2021).