This article discusses the challenges schools face as they face an immigration-driven student demography. The article sets U.S. education policy within the context of immigrant integration policy, and discusses trends within the growing immigrant student population. There is a discussion of challenges facing schools, including the sharp number of students with at least one parent born outside the United States; the dispersal of immigrant children into concentrated areas; age distribution of these children and the high concentration in secondary schools; the rising poverty level among immigrants; children who have not learned English after seven or more years in U.S. schools; and the linguistic isolation of these children in their homes.
