Immigrant Children

They come mostly from Southeast Asia Mexico and Central America. Most of these children know no English when they enter our schoolhouse doors that they share in common with some of the European migration that preceded them. But many of these present day immigrant children's earliest memories are full of violence and tremendous personal loss. I met Cambodia when I was three when a lot of people were killing each other. We get flipped you know feel like for me. And they keep shooting at it. And some people die because people shooting at them because of its geographic location nearest to the parts of the world that produce the largest numbers of political and economic refugees. California has become the new home of many immigrant families. Today at least one out of every six children enrolled in the public school system was born in another country. Laurie Elson who recently authored the report crossing the schoolhouse border for the group California tomorrow says the issue that most people focus on when they talk about

educating immigrant children is the language barrier. For the vast majority of immigrant kids the leaping of cultures is a far greater problem that they're facing than even the language issue. Kids who are here undocumented and very uncertain about their future here and under tremendous legal and economic pressures many of them who have come from war torn situations for instance have been very traumatized by the violence and the disruption of war. All of these kinds of things also compound the situation of an immigrant child stepping into our culture and suddenly trying to both understand what's happening here and find a way to really participate in school. Olson says that many immigrant children endure hostility when they first enroll in school. There can be taunts from other kids and some members of local communities resent providing any special help to these kids. All of that is part of this kind of tug of war I think of a society undergoing tremendous change with. A lot of fear and a lot of resistance as well as in the parts of

some people some real hope and welcoming of the changes. San Francisco is one school district that tries to welcome immigrant children. When a child arrives in the district he or she will be screened and tested by a multilingual staff member at the district's intake center. Many of the older children end up at what's called new comer high school designed to soften the transition into regular secondary schools. It's principal himself an immigrant from China is Paul Chang. When they come to newcomer high school we used to commission as provided you know by the intake center and we try to determine what would be the best class for a particular type of student. For those who come with very limited educational experiences we have. We have to make sure that we have the right materials in the right teacher for that type of student that student needs more attention than the student who has had seven or eight years who's been in school longer. How to help older students with little prior education is a major challenge to educators. And according to Paul Chang the rapid changes in the job

market over the past few decades will make it harder for immigrants without a degree or a marketable skill to succeed. In the old days there were a lot of jobs in the factories that didn't require much skill communication skill or technical skill. And a lot of them got jobs. They work very hard certainly and that's credit due to them. But I think with the assistance that exists with by having with support I think the women can be greater. The adjustment can be faster but now years of benign neglect toward the education of immigrant children. Has the business community very worried indeed already shortages of skilled workers are predicted for the beginning of the 21st century. According to Laurie Olson of California tomorrow it's possible that the business community might also help pressure school systems to see their immigrant students as having something of value rather than a disability and having other language skills.

They're very cognizant of the necessity of developing strong language resources in our society to become part of an international economy particularly Pacific Rim opponent to me. And here we have children families coming in with those language resources with the ability to communicate intercultural e. And we should be nurturing that making use of that and the educational community is looking at statistics which say that 70 percent of all immigrant children don't finish high school that says U.S. education secretary Laura is an unacceptable figure. We probably years close to seven hundred thousand students drop out every year and ever school system in America today. We're losing them because that inability to comprehend and to understand. But educators point out that teaching immigrant children is a challenge that goes beyond individual school districts that a head in the sand approach by local and state governments won't make the needs of these children go away. I'm Kathy McAnally.