In the United States, it has been generally acknowledged that no public institution has a greater impact on the individual’s place in society than the schools. Immigrants have consistently recognized the importance of the educational system in the transmission of language and culture. While many immigrants did return, the majority, in fact, did stay. Among those groups who tended to remain were the Germans, and it is the Germans that made greatest efforts to retain native language and culture. In 1975 the US Commission on Civil Rights issued an extensive report analyzing the educational needs of all language minorities in the United States. The federal government itself has been lax in enforcing the provisions of the Bilingual Education Act. Most evaluations of bilingual programs fall into two categories: those which attempt to prove that bilingual programs accomplish their objectives, and those which attempt to evaluate the effect of the program on acquiring the second language.