The Department of Education estimates that 200, 000 more children, largely minority, will enter our public schools every year, and unless we want MTV Cribs, MySpace, and YouTube to be their primary instructors about life in America, we will need schools that accept the responsibility for bringing not just them but their families into our society.

NPR: Seeking Solutions for the Nation's Broken Schools

New pre-school programmes in several countries, notably the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, now help Romany-speaking tots to learn the main language of the country in which they live before starting primary school, so saving them from the special schools and a life of at best menial labour.

ECONOMIST: Gypsy children