ABSTRACT
In chapter 1, I described my experience tutoring George, a student from Colombia who was attending high school in a Washington, D.C. suburb, which I call Fairview County. Fairview is one of the richest counties in the country, and its citizens, who include a lot of government workers, are very civic minded. They insist on (are willing to pay for) excellent schools, parks, and libraries, and they get them. My children started school there, and my only complaint was that they had to study too hard. Fairview attracts a large number of immigrants. The largest groups are Koreans, Vietnamese, and Hispanics, but the public schools enroll children from over 100 countries. When I lived in Fairview, the main way of integrating immigrant children into the schools was through English as a second language (ESL). Children who spoke little or no English were placed in ESL classes for 3 hours a day and nonlanguage intensive classes, such as music and physical education, for the rest of the day. When they were ready, the students took 2 hours of ESL and one or more mainstream classes, such as math or science, and later one ESL class with more mainstream classes. For advanced-level students, there were some sheltered classes (see chap. 3) in literature, history, and science (George was taking all mainstream classes except for one ESL class and the sheltered literature class in which I helped him).
