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One out of every five children now enrolled in a U.S. public school speaks a language other than English at home. Many of them were born in other countries. Some have had little or no formal education before coming to the United States, even among those who are the age of American middle or high school students.

By 2030, the proportion of students learning English as a second language in American public schools will be , although not all of them will have been born outside the country. Data from the U.S. Census show that as of 2009, 22.5 percent of all public school students are either foreign-born or have at least one foreign-born parent.

While some quintessential American policies are in place to enable these students to succeed, the U.S. hasn鈥檛 yet mastered how to best teach children coming to school with an array of cultural and linguistic challenges endemic to a nation of great social diversity. And, at least in this respect, U.S. educators are far from alone.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think anybody has found the perfect answer,鈥� says Delia Pompa, a senior vice president for programs at the , the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 think of a country where, if we just did 鈥榯hat,鈥� we鈥檇 be perfect.鈥�

Teaching foreign-born students and students learning English is a complex task, further complicated by issues of race, culture, and ethnicity. Because defining these groups is difficult, measuring their performance and progress can also be a challenge.

One way of defining this challenge is to examine the academic performance of students in nations around the world who have at least one foreign-born parent, or who are non-natives themselves. A recent from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris, 鈥淥vercoming Social Background,鈥� studied how well such students did in reading.

鈥淎cross OECD countries, first-generation students 鈥� score, on average, 52 points below students without an immigrant background,鈥� the report noted. 鈥淪econd-generation students outperform first-generation students by 18 score points in reading. These large gaps highlight the disadvantage of first-generation students.鈥�

Statistical Snapshot

The performance of U.S. immigrant students is difficult to classify.

On the , or PISA, given to 15- and 16-year-olds in 65 countries, about 60 percent of first- and second-generation immigrant students in the United States scored at proficiency level three out of seven in reading. That鈥檚 slightly better than the average for all OECD countries. (The participating countries make up 90 percent of the world economy, OECD says.)

Among countries classified as having an immigrant student population of between 15 percent and 30 percent, which is where the United States falls, students in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Switzerland do slightly better in reading on the PISA. In the United Kingdom, with a smaller percentage of immigrant students鈥攂etween 5 percent and 15 percent鈥攁verage reading scores are lower, as they are in Chile, Spain, Sweden, and Ireland, all of which have a smaller percentage of immigrant students.

Many countries with a similar proportion of nonnative students did worse than immigrants in America. Among Western European countries, for example, Germany had the largest gaps in performance between its native- and foreign-born students in all subjects.

鈥淚f you had to make a global judgment, the U.S. does not show up as really any better than the Western European countries. Germany is the exception鈥擥ermany does really poorly,鈥� says Richard Alba of the City University of New York, where his teaching and research focus on international migration in the United States and Europe.

A quick analysis of the PISA data by Maki Park, a policy analyst at the , shows that American immigrant children score behind Canada鈥檚 foreign-born in reading and math, and behind those in the United Kingdom in some subjects. (Canada鈥檚 foreign-born students consistently outperformed all other countries鈥� foreign-born students in each subject by a significant margin, Park says.).

But what those results really mean as a road map for policy is unclear, says Margie McHugh, co-director of the institute.

鈥淲ith the PISA data you鈥檙e just getting this snapshot,鈥� says McHugh, whose organization is based in Washington. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got these other issues鈥攆irst vs. second generation. You can鈥檛 capture, then, how long have these kids been in the school system.鈥�

Immigration Policy

The performance of immigrant students varies from country to country not simply because of vast differences in education systems, but also because of unique immigration policy and strategy. Upon close examination, even countries that seem similar to the United States in some respects appear to become incomparable as a result.

In a outlining lessons from PISA for the United States, the OECD wrote extensively about Canada鈥檚 success with immigrant students. The organization directly links the country鈥檚 immigration policies to that success.

鈥淭he majority of immigrants who come to the country are selected to fill economic needs. This means that they are not seen as a threat or as competing for jobs, and increases the political support for their arrival,鈥� the report states.

A prior report from the OECD found that first-generation Canadian students had parents with as many or more years of education as native-born parents. In addition, Canada was one of only a few countries where immigrant students had access to the same or better school conditions than native-born students, such as lower student-teacher ratios, higher teacher morale, and better school infrastructure.

Is the United States鈥� neighbor to the north, then, a source of ideas and inspiration for educating American immigrant students?

The OECD鈥檚 Andreas Schleicher says yes.

鈥淚t鈥檚 true, Canada has many immigrant children from relatively rich backgrounds. But you can also look at the immigrant children from poor backgrounds and [look at] comparable immigrant children between Canada and the United States. And if you do that, you鈥檒l actually see that immigration makes much less of a difference than it does in the United States,鈥� Schleicher says.

While German immigrant students鈥� performance still lags behind that their U.S. peers, even that country鈥檚 policies provide an example to follow, he adds. Germany鈥檚 immigrant students鈥� performance has improved over the last decade.

鈥淚n 2000, Germany鈥檚 situation looked a lot worse than the United States. There were a lot of policy initiatives鈥攇reater emphasis on primary schools, establishment of universal early-childhood education,鈥� says Schleicher. 鈥淭he question is: Does this always come down to culture? No, Germany didn鈥檛 change its culture; it changed the way it dealt with immigrant students.鈥�

For example, the country has tried to better integrate immigrants, extending naturalized citizenship to many immigrants and emphasizing language education, notes a from the Centre for Eastern Studies, based in Poland.

More broadly, there are other ways the U.S. education system can work more effectively with immigrant students, says Alba, of CUNY.

鈥淯nlike a lot of European systems, kids start school here relatively late. Pre-K is not universal; we know that the children of some immigrant groups are less likely to be in preschool than some middle-class whites,鈥� he says.

In France, by contrast, pre-K is universal. 鈥淏y the age of 3, and often by the age of 2, all kids are in educationally rich settings, playing with other kids, supervised by other adults, probably speaking French with these other kids,鈥� Alba says. Learning the native language is part of the foundation of their academic success.

Another factor may be the length of the school year, which tends to be shorter in the United States, says Alba. Students have been shown to lose ground over the summer, and it鈥檚 often the students struggling the most in school, including non-native English-speakers, who lose the most ground.

Distinct Policies

Test scores aside, America鈥檚 immigrant roots and history, along with modern policies, position its educational system to work with immigrant students in a way few other countries can. In the United States, the issue of educating immigrants often is synonymous with educating students learning English, which has drawn increasing federal attention and priority in recent years.

In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton that required the federal government to improve access for those with limited English skills to federal services and programs.

Then the 2002 No Child Left Behind law cemented the status of students learning English in the U.S. as a group of children whose performance must be tracked. The law requires schools, districts, and states to test these students in math and reading and report their scores on tests that are the same as their English-speaking classmates. These students must also take English-language proficiency exams every year, another requirement of NCLB.

Despite those policies, data on those students make for a truly alarming picture.

On the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, in reading, just 6 percent of 4th graders learning English were proficient, along with 3 percent of 8th-grade English-learners. In math, 12 percent of students learning English were at or above proficiency, as were 5 percent of 8th graders.

While American educational policies, in theory, should position many students for success, the manifestation of those policies varies widely from school to school, district to district, and state to state. And whatever federal policies and laws may say, the federal Education and Justice departments have investigated, and continue to look into, school districts that fail students learning English.

In October, for example, the Education Department unveiled the results of a 19-month investigation of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation鈥檚 second-largest district. The 670,000-student district agreed to remedy disparities in the quality of education for students learning English through measures including a complete overhaul of its English-learning program. Only 5 percent of the scores of high school English-language learners registered as proficient in either English or math, the district鈥檚 2009-10 state exam scores show, compared to an overall district average of 37 percent proficient in English and 17 percent in math. Other department investigations in recent years have yielded settlements with the Philadelphia and Boston school districts.

Underlying all of that, says Pompa, of the National Council of La Raza, is the requirement that all children鈥攔egardless of their immigration status鈥攂e accepted into public schools. However, she says, 鈥渢he implementation is another matter.鈥�

The hurdles in providing a quality education to students learning English exist at every facet of public school systems, from communicating and engaging parents, training teachers, and testing students, says McHugh of the Migration Policy Institute.

鈥淚t does seem to me when one looks at many of the [European Union] countries. ... they seem to think more about discrimination and cultural differences between [immigrant] students and their teachers, addressing prejudice and cultural bias,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n the U.S. we have almost none of that. We focus mostly on the process of language acquisition.鈥�

鈥淚 think the ideal is having both.鈥�