Enroll in DPS
In 1968, the U.S. Congress enacted the National Bilingual Education Act, known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In a 1970 memorandum, the Office for Civil Rights clarified "the responsibility of school districts to provide equal educational opportunity to national origin minority group children" through the provision of bilingual education.
In Lau V. Nichols (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court found that Equal Educational Opportunity for language minority students could not be achieved simply by providing equal facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum. Bilingual Education was prescribed as the remedy allowing equality of access to education.\
Congress adopted the Equal Education Opportunities Act as an amendment to the Educational Amendments of 1974. The act states that, "No State shall deny equal educational opportunity by the failure of an educational agency to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by its students in the instructional programs."
Since the mid 1970's, schools are required to provide remedies to overcome the language barriers of its ELLs. In Michigan, the school code requires that each ELL be served according to his other language.
