As Washington focuses its attention on jobs, the economy, and health care, it is not surprising that talk of immigration reform has taken a back seat to other legislative agendas. But as my colleagues Marcelo and Carola Suárez-Orozco, faculty members at NYU Steinhardt and co-directors of Immigration Studies@NYU, have argued,the U.S. must do a better job of educating immigrant children anmust dmake this a priority. The skills necessary for a globalized culture and the information age—critical thinking skills, problem solving strategies, and the ability to work collaboratively with others from different racial or cultural backgrounds—will become even more pronounced as the 21st century progresses. Schools are crucial players in preparing immigrant children for the realities of the 21st century job market.

In their recently published study of immigrant youth in the U.S., Learning a New Land, they write:
“Solving the big problems of the day, whether deep poverty, infectious disease, environmental degradation, global warming, or terrorism, will require the active engagement of well-educated, cognitively flexible, and culturally sophisticated individuals able to work in groups. Schools, then, will need to nurture young minds to be able to synthesize knowledge derived from various academic disciplines, wrestle with social and ethical dilemmas, and work across cultural boundaries with individuals of different races, religions, and cultures.”

It is not clear that our education system, at present, is ready to take on these challenges. Many immigrant children, especially those with limited English proficiency, are at a big disadvantage when they enter the American school system. Children from immigrant families may not have the same familial supports as their native counterparts, since their parents may not understand how to navigate the American public school system or have English language proficiency. Many immigrant students are from poor families, are concentrated in the most challenged schools, and lack access to things like home computers, extra-curricular and after school programs, and other opportunities for enrichment. Furthermore, many immigrant students lack appropriate knowledge of college pathways, resulting in missed opportunities to further invest in their educations.

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco and Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, a doctoral student at NYU Steinhardt, have pointed out that children from immigrant families are the fastest growing sector of school-age children in the U.S., and yet there have been few interventions designed with their needs in mind.To remedy this problem, the pair, along with Carola Suárez-Orozco, have launched a new web portal highlighting existing programs and interventions aimed at this population. The site, Pathways to Immigration, provides a wide overview of strategies that are currently being employed to help ease the transition for immigrant families. Examples include programs that support parenting among low-income immigrant communities, such as Avance El Paso, to those that provide immigrant youth with information on post-secondary educational pathways, such as the Si Se Puede! (Yes We Can!) initiative of the City University of New York.

Recently, the New York Times published an editorial highlighting Marcelo and Carola Suárez-Orozco’s work, noting that children are often forgotten about in the tempestuous debate over immigration in the U.S. today. The editors write that young immigrants are “a cohort of newcomers who will be filling the demographic void left as the baby boomers start fading away. Their future is our country’s future.” We would do well to remember this as we design education policies and interventions for the coming years.