Significant New Dialog on Immigration

Starting today at the New York Times Online is a significant new dialog about immigration. The initial topic is bilingual education for the young, which is near enough to our mission to warrant close attention. You can follow it here.

It's good starting point to see how leaders in the field see the same issue from various perspectives. Although the obstacles facing adult learners are different than those of children in the classroom, it can't hurt to broaden our knowledge with the experience of others.

Regarding the education of young SOL, we all know there's a major change going on in many of our local classrooms, but it helps to see statistics and charts to appreciate it. From the Times:

Immigration’s impact is often first seen in the classroom. The increasing diversity of the nation’s education system is the most detailed measure of where immigrants have settled in recent years. View demographic changes in more than 17,000 school districts across the nation — including your own.

If you want to see how immigration has effected the student population of Plainfield and the rest of New Jersey over the last twenty years, click here.