0.7 Gallegos, c., & Wise, d. (september 2011). leadership for  (Page 3/18)

The Chacón-Moscone Bilingual-Bicultural Education act was also passed in 1974. This act established bilingual education programs to meet the needs of identified English learners, but, in 1987, the then Governor of California, Governor Deukmejian rejected the reauthorization and the law was allowed to expire (Mora, 2005). In 1996, four California school districts were granted waivers that allowed them to eliminate their bilingual programs in favor of English–only programs. A court later ruled that the waivers had been unnecessary because California law had already been changed when the law requiring bilingual education had been allowed to sunset. Two months later, in May of 1998, Governor Pete Wilson gave school districts the flexibility to use bilingual programs or English immersion to meet the needs of the English learners (Mora, 2005). The following month, on June 3, 1998, Proposition 227 passed. It basically required English-only programs be implemented and that bilingual programs be dismantled unless otherwise requested by parents.

While lawsuits in the 1970s and 1980s focused on guaranteeing English learners access to the content through bilingual instruction, the passage of Proposition 227 in 1998 in California created a requirement that instruction had to be delivered mostly, or entirely, in English (American Institutes for Research, 2006). Standards and curricular frameworks were already in use in California, so the required content had already been identified, but concern over access to the content under this new law remained. The concern initially focused on whether students were being given the opportunity to master the content if they were not allowed to receive instruction in the primary language. A follow-up study commissioned by the California Department of Education showed that the language of instruction might not be the major issue of concern for student achievement (AIR, 2006; Parrish, Linquanti,&Merickel, 2002). The greater concern, it seemed, might be school-related factors including appropriate language development and rigor of instruction. Passage of 227 was followed by the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2002 as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001.

The NCLB legislation produced even greater accountability measures and tied that accountability to funding. The issue for schools and districts now focused on accountability for student learning and whether schools provided adequate resources for students to have the opportunity to master the content of the standards rather than simply to be exposed to the content of the standards (Northwest Regional, 2008). In California schools serving populations living in poverty, both access and opportunity were again highlighted in a key court decision that changed state law. Known as the Williams’ Act, the law required school districts receiving Title I funds to prove that every child attending a high-poverty school has a current state-adopted text for each content area, that the school is in a good state of repair, and that the school is staffed with qualified teachers (California Department of Education, 2009b; Settlement, 2004). The Williams’ Settlement along with Proposition 227 and the accountability of NCLB led the way to an era of accountability for materials, instruction and results for all populations, including English learners.