Educating Immigrant Students a Challenge in U.S., Elsewhere
Efforts to help foreign-born students and children learning new languages are complicated by immigration policy, culture and other factors
One out of every five children now enrolled in a U.S. public school speaks a language other than English at home. Many of them were born in other countries. Some have had little or no formal education before coming to the United States, even among those who are the age of American middle or high school students.
By 2030, the proportion of students learning English as a second language in American public schools will be more like two out of every five students , although not all of them will have been born outside the country. Data from the U.S. Census show that as of 2009, 22.5 percent of all public school students are either foreign-born or have at least one foreign-born parent.
While some quintessential American policies are in place to enable these students to succeed, the U.S. hasn't yet mastered how to best teach children coming to school with an array of cultural and linguistic challenges endemic to a nation of great social diversity. And, at least in this respect, U.S. educators...
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