Customer Reviews

Lau V. Nichols: Bilingual Education in Public Schools (Landmark Supreme Court Cases)

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Lau V. Nichols was the case that granted rights to students whose first language is not English. This case was brought by the San Francisco parents of several Cantonese speaking children. Their contention was that because their children were not getting help with their English they could not effectively participate in the educational process. In some ways this case mirrors Brown V. Board of Education. In Brown the fight was over equal access and equal treatment. In Lau the judges finally ruled that equal treatment did not facilitate equal access and participation in the educational system. Today fedral law mandates that public school students who do not possess adequate English language skills receive ESL, English as a second language classes or ELL English language learning. This is an excellent book about a not so well know case. I highly recommend this Landmark Supreme Court Cases series.

Wonderful book about the landmark Supreme Court case requiring school districts to offer education to students who needed to learn English. Other court rulings have strengthened the ruling and weakened it but the ruling imperfectly still stands. The details in this book is information I should have learned in graduate students as a TESOL student but didn't. An important book and some detailed adult book and a children's picture book should be developed around the case and its story. Thanks to the book series for publishing this book.