Made in America: Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools

By Laurie Olsen

Book Overview

As the United States reexamines its borders and immigration policies, the debate over educating immigrant students in our public schools has divided Americans. What can teachers and immigrant students expect from each other? Laurie Olsen, director of a nationally recognized immigrant organization, describes what it looks and feels like to go to school and to teach in a culturally diverse environment.

Made in America describes Madison High, a prototypical public high school, where more than 20 percent of students were born in another country and more than a third speak limited English or come from homes in which English is not spoken. Through interviews with teachers, administrators, students, and parents, Olsen explores such issues as the complexities of bilingual education and the difficulties of dating for students already promised in marriage at birth.

In the words of Teacher Magazine, "Olsen's message is clear: celebrating diversity is fine, but it's no substitute for giving all students a real chance at school success." With a new introduction stressing the importance of advocacy for immigrant students in a climate of increasing exclusion, Made in America will help a new generation of educators recognize the impact that immigration has on their schools.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595583491
• ISBN13: 9781595583499
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Immigrants Perspective on American Education

Wonderful book! Amazing insight into immigrant students mindset of the American education system. Great discussion about ESL programs and the difficulties immigrants face when trying to assimilate in American schools. Interesting prospective on the dynamics of keeping ones culture while assimilating into new surroundings. The book has great diversity and touches on the American students perspective of immigrants within the public school system. It discusses the American students need for immigrants to assimilate completely into American society. I would recommend this book to all teachers, administrators, and education students to better understand the dynamics of their classroom.

Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools

This is a very good book. The book is written from a California school district perspective, but the pointview of the author reflects what is going on in many schools across the U.S. A good book for all teachers to read, even if you don't teach ESL. The book holds a truth which is, we as teachers must be our students' voice. Read it!!

puts a human face on the issue of immigrant education

Unsure of how you feel about bilingual education? Even more likely, don't really understand what bilingual education is? Read this book. Laurie Olsen helps us put a human face on what has become a political question. Her clear and well-written portrait of one school puts the issue of language, emotional and sensitive as it can be, in concrete terms of pragmatic educational effectiveness: You can't learn what you don't understand. For anyone who cares about this important issue, or even feels as though they should.