Immigrants would thrive with more English classes

Another story about the necessity of English for immigrants to move into the middle class. DP

BY TARA COLTON | Tara Colton is associate research director at the Center for an Urban Future, a Manhattan-based think tank.

newsday.com: The immigration debate is focused on flash point topics like driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, hiring halls and border fences.

But all the rhetoric and punditry obscures a crisis among immigrants themselves: the growing unmet demand for English-language instruction.

This is a crucial problem, because the more fluent immigrants are in English, the more they can contribute positively to society. This is a point that all sides of the immigration debate agree on. Making this improvement in the lives of millions of people living and working here has got to be as vital as deciding whether to punish them for how they arrived.

For business and government, it's also a matter of economic development. Boosting workers' English skills improves productivity, reduces turnover and helps growth.

In an economy increasingly dominated by service and information jobs, only in a shrinking number of industries can a worker advance to the middle class without at least some command of English. Workers need English to communicate with supervisors, interact with customers and understand everything from computer databases to safety regulations.
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