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Among Asian Pacific people, 73.3 percent speak a language other than English, compared with 13.8 percent of the total U.S. population. Due to the relative flood of Southeast Asian immigrant children, schools lack sufficient resources in teachers, materials, and second language acquisition (ESL course work support) to make the promise of educational access real for non-English-speaking students. Although most students are conversant in English, it often takes three to five years for students – of any age -- to comprehend the language and use it as a medium of academic learning. Most Asian Pacific students are receiving only a limited amount of bilingual education as they are pulled out of regular class for an hour or two at a time for bilingual education specifically driven to improve English vocabulary. Even this isn’t enough and still this takes them away from their class and the learning that is occurring there. Bilingual education needs to be fully implemented in a concentrated effort both in schools and in work place settings designed to enhance adult language skills.

This is a difficult problem with limited ready solutions. Although minority students make up 13.5 percent of the total student population for Minnesota, only three percent of public school teachers are from the minority community who truly speak the immigrant language correctly. In the Minneapolis Public Schools, 17 percent of the teachers are recognized as minority community participants, and only 3.0 percent are Asian American. In the St. Paul Public School District 57.3 percent of the students are from minority communities yet only 13.2 percent of teachers are from minority communities. To teach and provide needed support services, Asian Pacific immigrant youth require professionals who speak their language and who understand their culture and the challenges faced in the transition to a new land. Without well-trained, culturally competent, bilingual Asian Pacific American teachers, administrators, counselors, and other professionals strong language programs cannot be delivered. Students in need of mental health or health services to support their involvement in school are neither identified nor served, and Asian immigrants become increasingly at risk for educational difficulties.

Textbooks in the school system, if they are available, are often outdated and lag behind the needs of a diverse community while study materials for adults is extremely limited at or through work sites. Teachers are faced with the responsibility to find and create curricula that are most often time dependent on students' personal experiences through oral presentations and writing exercises. The students become the expert, but in most cases, few students know about the historical and contemporary realities of Asian Pacific communities. In schools where multicultural curriculum exists, it is sometimes reduced to "honoring" Asian Pacific people through International Day or Asian Pacific Heritage Day where students are encouraged to wear their native clothing and share their native food. Such approaches perpetuate stereotypes and are irrelevant to some Asian Pacific students, especially, if they are third or fourth generation and or are not knowledgeable about their culture and history.