Teachers and schools in Denmark are presently trapped in a dilemma between political discourse concerning monolingual and monocultural education in the national curriculum and their professional knowledge about children and learning processes. Out of 690,000 students in primary and lower secondary schools in Denmark, approximately 10% are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. At some schools in the major cities, up to 70-80% of the students originate from another country and do not speak Danish as their mother tongue. In spite of this reality, the government has intensified the development of the national curriculum during the last eight years, whereby more emphasis is put on Danish language and culture, while minority languages, cultures and religions are ignored. Or to put it more accurately: more emphasis is mainly put in a "rhetorical" way on the Danish language. In reality, many students with Danish as a second language are offered no or far less second language instruction than they actually need. The Danish government has, in its own words, "done a lot" (Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs 2005, 1). In this article, a few examples of government initiatives targeting ethnic minority students are elaborated upon, and a few suggestions for new strategies are presented. (Contains 3 notes.)