The Impact of Immigration on Twenty-First Century America - English Language Proficiencyimportant To Educational Success

In a study of immigration's impact on the nation's schools, Michael E. Fix and Jeffrey S. Passel noted that as of 2000 one out of every five K–12 students was the child of immigrants and of these about 25% were themselves foreign-born (U.S. Immigration: Trends and Implications for Schools, Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, January 2003). Fix and Passel estimated that 5% of U.S. students had limited English proficiency (LEP). The authors also noted a recent dispersal trend—immigrants were moving in greater numbers into states that previously had not attracted significant numbers of immigrants. This created new challenges for schools that previously had not had to meet the needs of LEP students. In addition to the cost and availability of qualified bilingual teachers, schools faced the potential loss of certain federal funding according to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 should students—including LEP students—fail to make adequate academic progress on standardized tests.

Do Immigrants Improve English Skills with
Succeeding Generations?

Some commentators have expressed concerns that today's immigrants, particularly those who speak Spanish, may not be as willing to learn and use English as have past generations. The Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research studied this issue and found that "English is almost universally accepted by the children and grandchildren of the immigrants who have come to the U.S. in great numbers since the 1960s" (Richard Alba, Language Assimilation Today: Bilingualism Persists More Than in the Past, but English Still Dominates, Albany, NY: University of Albany, December 2004).

The study found that most second-generation children spoke another language at home, but almost all were proficient in English. Among second-generation Hispanics, 85% spoke some Spanish at home compared to 61% of second-generation Asians. Except among Spanish-speaking groups, the study found that by the third generation (the grandchildren of immigrants) English was the primary language. Among third-generation Asians, 92% spoke only English compared to 72% of Hispanics. For Mexican-American children, maintaining bilingual skills was most common in communities near the U.S.–Mexico border. Away from the border, third-generation Mexican-American children were unlikely to be bilingual.