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The Democratic Right To Full Bilingual Education, Thomas Kleven

Thomas Kleven

The law currently provides no right to bilingual education as such. The state does have a duty to take reasonable steps to overcome the English language deficiencies of children whose native language is not English. If transitional bilingual education is necessary to achieve that end, then it is required. But if not, if, for example, total immersion works as a way to achieve proficiency in English, then bilingual education is not required. Moreover, to the extent it is required, bilingual education may be discontinued once the transition to English is achieved. There is no obligation to enable a non-native English …