A discussion of the education of West Indian immigrant students in the New York City public schools focuses on identification and assessment of this population's needs. It is noted that West Indian students represent the fastest-growing immigrant population in the city, but no educational policy has been established in the city or state to address their cultural, sociological, linguistic, or psychological needs. The result is that this population is over-represented in remedial reading, corrective speech, and special education classes. A model of additive common underlying proficiency for language learning is examined, and its implementation is recommended, with the goal of developing and using assessment instruments for better identification of the educational needs of these students. A home language identification survey and language assessment battery that measure West Indian students' grammatical, sociolinguistic (or dialectal), discourse, and strategic competence are suggested. (MSE)