Case Studies of Delivery and Cost of Bilingual Education

Describes the current delivery and cost of bilingual programs in six Local Education Agencies (LEAs). The purpose of the study is to help the Department of Education estimate the cost to the nation's economy of regulations proposed in August 1980 for bilingual programs. The Note sheds light on several questions that are fundamental to federal policy in bilingual education. These are: (1) how does provision of bilingual education vary among LEAs? (2) why do these variations arise? and (3) how do these variations affect cost? The LEAs included in the study are in California, Texas, and Washington. They include two small rural districts, one medium suburban district, and three large urban districts. A total of nine foreign languages were spoken by the students. The authors describe the characteristics of language assistance services provided by the LEAs. They then explain the methods used to analyze the added cost of these services and present the results of this analysis. The final section summarizes their findings.