Some school adaptations that seem decidedly modern have roots in the early part of the century. Newcomer programs today often offer intensive language help and an orientation to the American school system and the cities where their students live. Schools across the country varied widely in how much they were affected by immigration and, in turn, how they responded to it. Schools were seen as places where polyglot populations went to be homogenized and absorbed into the larger society. Schools reached out to Americanize immigrant parents, too, by offering naturalization classes and free lectures.
Some historians view Americanization as coercive, nativist, and denigrating.
Others see it as having provided immigrants needed structure and direction in a difficult new environment. But most agree that the movement took on a harsher bent as anti-foreign tensions heated up at the time of the First World War. Many states passed laws banning German in classrooms, on the street, and in church. In the wake of the war, many states legislated English as the basic language of instruction or forbade foreign-language study in the elementary grades. But as the flow of new immigrants waned in the 1930s, so too did society's fears.