Office of English Language Acquisition

History of Federal Support for ELLs

Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, provided unprecedented academic support to students designated as Limited English Proficient (here referred to as ELLs). Regarded as one of the first official attempts to provide federally funded specialized support to ELLs, the act initially included instruction in Spanish as a native language, English as a second language instruction, and heritage Spanish cultural awareness and appreciation.

Title VII provided funding support to districts through a competitive grant system. A wide variety of curricular, teacher professional development, and student assessment programs were funded under Title VII; however, the act did not provide any specific mandates for the types of instruction that ELLs should receive. Further, though the act indicated that programs for classroom instruction and teacher professional development should be based on scientific research, there was no clear definition of who would determine which programs meet those requirements.

In 2001, the George W. Bush administration eliminated Title VII in NCLB—the administration's name for the reauthorization of ESEA. One of the sweeping changes of NCLB mandated that ELLs simultaneously attain English language proficiency and meet the same content area standards required of their native-born peers. Though NCLB allowed for district-level flexibility in the choice of curricula for ELLs, the legislation also prescribed greater accountability for ELLs. NCLB mandated that the academic achievement of ELLs was therefore included in administrators’ evaluations of students’ mastery of academic knowledge and skills as defined by NCLB's high-stakes testing program. For the purposes of accountability, ELLs’ test scores were included in schools’ Annual Yearly Progress calculations.

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