The Bilingual Education Act (BEA) impacted the needs of language minority students in American schools through bilingual education in both their native language and English. The implications for language policy are that emerging bilingual students could learn through both their first language and their second language. In 2002, a new act, the English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act, undermined the BEA because of its focus on moving bilinguals to English only classrooms as quickly as possible.
