Immigration Drives Unmanageable Increase in School Population Immigration Drives Unmanageable Increase in School Population Immigration has turned America s school system upside down, swamping it with too many students, many of whom have very limited proficiency in English. We have a century of enrollment growth ahead of us, a crescendo of children, said Education Secretary Richard Riley.
Growth is the new and unwavering demographic constant.
Most of this growth is due to immigration. According to a new analysis by the Urban Institute, a nationally known think tank, one out of every five students entering classrooms this fall is either foreign-born or the child of an immigrant. In California, half of the children starting school this fall are children of immigrants. In New York and Arizona, it s about one third. The share of students who are foreign-born or who have immigrant parents has tripled in the past 30 years.