You’ve probably heard and/or have seen firsthand that American society is becoming increasinly diverse, racially/ethnically and demographically. This has posed some challenges for many parts of our society, politically, culturally, and as the New York Times reports, educationally as elementary schools across the nation struggle to keep up with the influx of kids from baby boomers and immigrants:

Millions of baby boomers and foreign-born parents are enrolling their children, sending a demographic bulge through the schools that is driving a surge in classroom construction. It is also causing thousands of districts to hire additional qualified teachers at a time when the Bush administration is trying to increase teacher qualifications across the board. Many school systems have begun recruiting overseas for instructors in hard-to-staff subjects like special education and advanced math. . . .

In projections published last year, the federal Department of Education said the nation’s elementary and secondary enrollments would grow, on average, by about 200,000 students annually, reaching 56.7 million in 2014. . . . The enrollment trends would be uneven, regionally, with schools in the Northeast and Midwest losing students, on average, and those in the South and West growing, the department said.

This trend is yet another example of how, for better and for worse, American institutions must come to grips with and address the fundamental demographic changes that are taking place in our society. In other words, it is now longer prudent or even possible to pretend that American society will always be predominantly White, at least in demographic terms.

Whites and White culture will still have the most prominent influence at the institutional level, but as this article illustrates, the “next wave” of Americans is increasingly made up of immigrants and their children. As a society, we have the opportunity to leverage and benefit from that energy and human potential, or to squander it by resisting its inevitable emergence and instead, retreating into fear, arrogance, and isolation.

What will it be?