83 Promising Practices in Education E ducation has always been a pathway to social and economic integration for every generation of immigrants and their U.S-born descendants. The United States must make a commitment to ensure that all students, including those from an immigrant background, have access to a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in today’s knowledge-based economy. Educating immigrants and their children is vital to our ability to remain strong and prosperous as a nation.” —Andrés Henríquez, Program Officer, Education Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York, New York INTRODUCTION 85 EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES 86 ELEMENTS OF PROMISING PRACTICES 88 PROMISING PRACTICES: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION 90 Creating a Welcoming Environment Working with Immigrant Parents Helping Immigrant Families and Their Child Care Providers Become Teachers Promoting Family Literacy PROMISING PRACTICES: K-16 PUBLIC EDUCATION 93 Helping Schools Communicate with Immigrant Families Transforming Schools through Community Participation Improving Teacher Training Promoting the Success of English Language Learners Developing a Path to College for Latino Students Leveraging Community Colleges EVALUATING EDUCATION EFFORTS 101 “
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Promising Practices in Education
E ducation has always been a pathway to social and economic integration for every generation of immigrants and their U.S-born
descendants. The United States must make a commitment to ensure thatall students, including those from an immigrant background, have accessto a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in today’sknowledge-based economy. Educating immigrants and their children is vital to our ability to remain strong and prosperous as a nation.”
—Andrés Henríquez, Program Officer, Education Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York, New York
INTRODUCTION 85
EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES 86
ELEMENTS OF PROMISING PRACTICES 88
PROMISING PRACTICES: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION 90Creating a Welcoming EnvironmentWorking with Immigrant ParentsHelping Immigrant Families and Their
Child Care Providers Become TeachersPromoting Family Literacy
PROMISING PRACTICES: K-16 PUBLIC EDUCATION 93Helping Schools Communicate with Immigrant FamiliesTransforming Schools through Community ParticipationImproving Teacher TrainingPromoting the Success of English Language LearnersDeveloping a Path to College for Latino StudentsLeveraging Community Colleges
EVALUATING EDUCATION EFFORTS 101
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The demographic impact of immigrationis especially visible in the children
and youth population. Children of immi-grants make up nearly one out of fiveK-12 students in the United States.1
Their growth has been rapid, going fromonly six percent of the school-age pop-ulation in 1970 to 19 percent by 2000.Given the size of this population, howour educational institutions receive,treat, and teach children of immigrantsnot only affects immigrant families butwill determine our country’s long-termeconomic and social well-being.
The U.S. education system, from preschool through college, plays anespecially important role in integratingimmigrants and their children. The
system helps them acquire English, academic knowledge, vocational skills,and the history and values of their newhomeland. For many immigrants, educa-tion provides the raw materials to builda better life, work toward the AmericanDream, and become full members ofU.S. society.
This section explores the challenges ofserving newcomers’ educational needs,from pre-school through college, andidentifies successful strategies and programs to address them. The primaryfocus will be on children of immigrantswho live in low-income households andwhose parents have relatively limitededucation.
1. Capps, Randy, Michael Fix, Julie Murray, JasonOst, Jeffrey Passel, and Sinta Herwantoro. 2005.The New Demography of America’s Schools:Immigration and No Child Left Behind Act.Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute.
While children of immigrants sharethe general challenges faced by all
children in obtaining a high-qualityeducation, there are several uniquefactors that affect newcomer families.
• Most live in “mixed status” families with limited access to supportservices. Over three-quarters of childrenof immigrants are born in the UnitedStates and have the same rights andaccess to government services as othercitizens. However, most (85 percent)live in families with at least one non-citizen parent, and an estimated three
million live in households headed by at least one undocumented adult.2
Immigrant parents often have limitedEnglish skills, minimal knowledge of theU.S. education systems, and less accessto crucial services. The combination ofthese factors means that children ofimmigrants often must overcome multi-ple barriers to succeed in school.
• Many have limited English skills.About one-third of children in immigrantfamilies are limited English proficiency(LEP). The largest LEP population is inelementary schools. As children movethrough the school system, the size ofthis population declines but does notdisappear altogether. Interestingly,most LEP students are born in the
United States: 77 percent of LEP elementary school students and 56 percent of LEP middle and high schoolstudents are American-born. These highpercentages are due to the fact thatmany U.S.-born LEP students live in“linguistically isolated households,”a term defined by the U.S. CensusBureau as families in which no personaged 14 or over speaks English at leastvery well.
• Children of immigrants are morelikely to live in low-income and less-educated households. Twenty-one
percent of chil-dren in immigrantfamilies live inpoverty comparedwith 14 percent ofthose in U.S.-born
families.3 About a third of children ofimmigrants and half of LEP children livewith at least one parent who has lessthan a high school education. This fact,combined with limited literacy skills inboth English and their first languageand limited parental involvement ineducation, can affect the developmentof children in immigrant families.
• Immigrant families have strengthsthat can erode over time. Most immigrantfamilies arrive with multiple strengths:good health, intact families, strongwork ethic, and high aspirations for thefuture. But research suggests that manyof these strengths dissipate the longerthe family stays in the United States.For children of immigrants, the lengthof residence is correlated with decliningacademic motivation and achievement.5
Effective programs, however, canreverse this trend and help children ofimmigrants stay on the positive path to success.
2. Passel, Jeffrey. 2005. Estimates of the Size andCharacteristics of the Undocumented Population.Washington, D.C.: Pew Hispanic Center.3. Hernandez, Donald. 2004. “Demographic Changesand Life Circumstances of Immigrant Families.” TheFuture of Children 14(3) 17-47.4. Yarosz, Donald and William Steven Barnett.2001. “Who Reads to Young Children? IdentifyingPredictors of Family Reading Activities.” ReadingPsychology, 22:67-81.5. Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumbaut. 2001. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant SecondGeneration. Berkeley, CA: University of CaliforniaPress.
Studies show that without intervention, children of immigrants aresignificantly less likely than other low-income children to be exposed
to reading and writing activities during the first five years of life.4
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THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT AND CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002(NCLB) was passed with the goal toensure that all children, including LEPstudents, receive a high-quality edu-cation. With respect to disadvantagedstudents, including immigrant andLEP students, NCLB requires eachschool to:
• Identify and report scores onstandardized tests separately for LEP,low-income, and minority students(including Latinos and AsianAmericans).
• Help these identified populationsmake progress in learning Englishand other academic subjects.
• Offer students the right to trans-fer or receive additional educationalservices if the school does not meetstate test standards.
• Close or restructure if theschool’s student population performspoorly on standardized tests over sev-eral years.
• Have highly qualified teachers in allclassrooms, including those providingEnglish language instruction or bilingualeducation.
• Communicate with parents in theirnative language about their children’sacademic performance and the school’sperformance as measured by the stan-dards of the Act.
Implementation of this law has beenhighly controversial, and several stateshave sued the federal government, alleg-ing inadequate funding as well as chal-lenging its authority to impose certainrequirements on local schools. The Act’simpact on children of immigrants is notyet fully understood. Some experts seethe potential for NCLB to hold schoolsaccountable to immigrant and LEP chil-dren, helping them improve academicperformance. A recent survey of stateand district school officials confirmedthat educators believe the law hasbrought increased attention to the chal-lenges faced by LEP students. Yet at the
same time, they expressed concernthat the Act’s accountability require-ments are inflexible and do not pro-vide enough time for these studentsto become proficient in English. Thesurvey also found that fewer schoolswere teaching LEP students in theirnative language because of the law’semphasis on learning English.6
For more analysis of how the Actaffects children of immigrants, seeCapps, Randy et al. 2005. The NewDemography of America’s Schools:Immigration and No Child Left BehindAct. Washington, D.C.: UrbanInstitute.
6. Center for Education Policy. 2005. From theCapitol to the Classroom: Year 3 of the No ChildLeft Behind Act. Washington, D.C.: Center forEducation Policy.
Experts on early childhood and education have identified the
following elements as critical for help-ing children of immigrants succeed inschool and beyond.
• Provide early interventionthrough high-quality family literacyor preschool programs. Well-designedearly educational programs can helpchildren of immigrants, especially thosewith limited English skills and lessaccess to services, develop literacy,problem-solving, and social skills, whileshowing parents how to become teach-ers for their children. Two promisingearly educational approaches for thistarget population include high-qualityfamily literacy and preschool programsdesigned to serve newcomers.
• Make educational programs acces-sible to immigrant families. Successfulprograms are linguistically and culturallycompetent, located at convenient sites,and offer a welcoming environment.These programs use a variety of methods
to increase access, including hiring multilingual staff, conducting outreachto increase participation by immigrantfamilies, holding events to celebrateimmigrant cultures, developing programs
that specificallyaddress the inter-est and needs ofnewcomers, andforming partner-ship with immi-
grant parents or newcomer organiza-tions to help create a more inclusiveenvironment.
• Increase parental involvement in their children’s schools. Researchconsistently indicates that academicachievement of children will increase ifparents or family members are involvedin their education. Promising practicesin this area include developing multilin-gual outreach information, hiring bilingualstaff, and forming partnerships withimmigrant-serving organizations to pro-vide language assistance, parent liaison,and leadership training to immigrantparents. These approaches allow immi-grant parents to actively participate in school programs and engage in advocacy to help improve theirchildren’s education.
7. Tankanish, Ruby. 2004. “Leveling the PlayingField: Supporting Immigrant Children from Birth toEight.” The Future of Children 14(3) 61-79.
Early intervention is critical: Studies have shown that children’s skills inkindergarten can predict their educational achievement level in third grade,
and their achievement at the end of the third grade is highly correlatedwith future school success.7
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• Provide training to teachers andadministrators to help them becomefamiliar with the background of immi-grant families and to develop effec-tive teaching methods. Schools in newimmigrant destinations are especiallyshort of personnel who are familiar withdifferent cultural backgrounds and whohave training and experience in teach-ing English learners.8 To address thisgap, foundations can support documen-tation of promising teaching methodolo-gies, innovative continuing educationand professional development programsfor teachers, and efforts to bring morebicultural and bilingual teachers andadministrators into the field.
• Provide age- and developmentallyappropriate support programs thathelp children of immigrants succeedat all levels of education, from earlychildhood through higher education.Tutoring, mentoring, college preparation,counseling on college and career options,and other support programs can helpchildren of immigrants achieve educationalsuccess. In many cases, these childrenmay be the first in their family to grad-uate from high school or attend college.
• Help immigrant families andorganizations advocate for better education. Improving academic achieve-ment among low-income children ofimmigrants requires more than goodprograms. In many low-income schooldistricts, the problems are much larger.Schools in such districts are oftenunderfunded; their facilities are in poorconditions; they may lack up-to-datetext books or computers; and the cur-riculum may not be sufficient to preparestudents for college. Helping immigrantcommunities become active participantsand leaders in developing and monitoringpolicy changes is often needed to makesignificant reforms, whether within asingle school or across a school system.
8. Wainer, Andrew. 2004. The New Latino South andthe Challenge to Public Education: Strategies forEducators and Policymakers in Emerging ImmigrantCommunities. Los Angeles, CA: Tomas RiveraInstitute.
The Village for Early Childhood EducationLittleton, Colorado http://village.littleton.publicschools.net
Started as a small preschool in an abandoned building provided by thelocal school district, the Village for EarlyChildhood Education is a communitypreschool open to the general public. Itserves 350 children from ten differentcountries through a variety of programs,including Head Start, state-funded pre-school, and special education. The pro-gram is center-based, with full-time andpart-time class options, and its curricu-lum is aligned with the local school district to help children prepare forkindergarten.
The Village believes that families arethe foundation for each child’s educationand actively supports and encourages apartnership between home and school.As the number of English LanguageLearners (ELLs) has grown to almost 20percent of its school population, theVillage has taken steps to make thesefamilies feel comfortable and respected.These steps include:
• Hiring bilingual Spanish-speakingteachers and aides to communicatewith its largest LEP family population.The Village has a Spanish-language hotline that provides information aboutschool activities and allows Spanish-speaking parents to leave messages for
the staff. The Village also has an agree-ment with the local school district toprovide interpretation and translationservices in other languages as needed.
• Distributing non-English books to immigrant families so that parentscan read to their children in theirnative language. While the Village usesan English immersion curriculum, it rec-ognizes that children benefit from beingread to at home regardless of the lan-guage. Providing parents with native-language materials makes it easier forthem to help children learn and developliteracy skills.
• Incorporating cultures and traditions of enrolled families into theclassroom curriculum and into specialevents that promote cross-culturallearning and understanding among theenrolled families.
• Offering a variety of bilingualcourses (English/Spanish) for parents,including parenting classes to help families reinforce their children’s class-room learning, as well as financial liter-acy classes to help newcomers learnfinancial management skills.
• Making available ESL and citizen-ship classes to immigrant parents.The Village originally offered ESL classesat its site, but as the demand for theclasses grew, it approached the city tofind other locations for an expandedprogram. The City of Littleton now offersmultiple ESL and citizenship classes atthe city library and local churches, andmany of the participants are familieswhose children attend the Village.
Despite working with a large low-incomeand immigrant student population, theVillage has been effective in helpingchildren become school ready. The pub-lic school district found that enteringkindergarteners who had at least twoyears of schooling at the Village per-formed 35 percent higher on English literacy assessments than children whodid not attend pre-school.
SPARK Georgia and La Escuelita Atlanta, Georgiawww.sparkga.org
SPARK Georgia, a project of Smart StartGeorgia and United Way of MetropolitanAtlanta, uses a community-basedapproach to help immigrant familieslearn about early education opportuni-ties and develop skills for participatingin their children’s education over thelong run. Funded through a multi-stateinitiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation,9
SPARK Georgia works with six communityagencies and in partnership with localelementary schools to provide earlychildhood assessment, information, andother assistance to 1,000 children andtheir families in predominately low-income neighborhoods.
The formation of La Escuelita (“TheLittle School”) in the City of Norcross—a small Atlanta suburb where approxi-mately 80 percent of the public schoolchildren receive free or reduced lunches-is a good example of SPARK Georgia’scollaborative approach. Following homevisits and community meetings in amostly Spanish-speaking neighborhood,residents of two nearby apartment com-plexes asked if the project could helpthem start a program to prepare theirchildren for formal education. Lackingfunds for child care and transportation,many of these residents had little choicebut to leave their children in the careof relatives or neighbors while they worked.
SPARK Georgia and United Way workedwith the families to obtain a grant fromthe Primerica Citicorp Foundation toprovide an onsite early education programfor three- and four-year-olds. Overseenby a parental advisory committee, theprogram (1) hired a professional, bilin-gual teacher to provide six hours ofearly education weekly to 32 children;(2) developed a bilingual curriculum tostrengthen language, cognitive, andsocial skills; (3) helped families applyfor and transition into either the state-funded preschool program or the localelementary school; and (4) maintainedactive parental involvement throughholding regularly scheduled communitymeetings and encouraging parents toattend the school with their children. Atthe same time, SPARK Georgia workedwith local preschools and the publicelementary school to organize teachertrainings and meetings between educa-tors and immigrant parents to help theseinstitutions become better prepared toteach Spanish-speaking children.
SPARK Georgia’s community approach inNorcross has not only increased thenumber of immigrant children enrolledin the state’s preschool program, includ-ing a significant number from familieswith undocumented members,10 but ithas also helped parents learn how toactively support their children’s education.As SPARK Georgia’s Project CoordinatorRoberta Malavenda explains, “La Escuelitais not only intended to provide criticalearly education to children, but it also
offers the opportunity to grow parents’leadership skills and help them developa voice in their community.”
The results from the first year of the La Escuelita program suggest that it ishaving this effect. Dion Jones, the principal of the nearby RockbridgeElementary School, observes that the La Escuelita children were well preparedfor kindergarten and, equally important,their parents are participating in hisschool’s activities. Rockbridge held itsannual International Day celebration inthe fall of 2005, and Mr. Jones notesthat many of the parents who have been active with SPARK Georgia helpedorganize the event and have transferredtheir energy from La Escuelita to theirnew school.
9. SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure ReadyKids) is a W.K. Kellogg-funded initiative to supportmulti-sector efforts to prepare children for school.SPARK projects involve partnerships among commu-nity-based organizations, state agencies, andschools to provide comprehensive support toyoungsters and high-quality early learning experi-ences required for success in school.10. Approximately 90 percent of the eligible chil-dren in 2005 La Escuelita program were enrolled ina state-funded preschool.
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HELPING IMMIGRANT FAMILIESAND THEIR CHILD CAREPROVIDERS BECOME TEACHERS
Good Beginnings Never EndLong Beach, California
Although child care and preschool education are increasingly provided incenter-based facilities, a large numberof children in immigrant families do notuse such care.11 For many low-income orLEP immigrants, leaving their childrenwith relatives, neighbors, or family-based providers (defined as someonewho cares for two or more unrelatedchildren in her home) is often the mostaffordable and accessible form of day-care. However, many of these providershave little or no early childhood train-ing and also face language and culturalbarriers themselves.
With support from the John S. and JamesL. Knight Foundation and First Five LA,Long Beach City College has been oper-ating the Good Beginnings Never End(GBNE) project, which uses severalstrategies to help family-based providers,grandparents, and other informal care-takers in low-income, largely immigrantneighborhoods provide better child care.These include home visits and coaching,trainings to become licensed child careproviders, and helping the providerstake advantage of community resources.
• Home visits. A bilingual staff mem-ber, or one accompanied by an inter-preter, visits and conducts assessmentsbased on the Family Day Care RatingScale12 and then works with providers toimprove their quality of care. Some ofthe frequently addressed issues includeimproving home-safety conditions, pro-viding school-readiness information,ensuring that children receive immu-nizations, and increasing literacy andeducation projects such as reading, art,music, and field trips to libraries,schools, parks, and museums.
Home visits require a high level of trust,and GBNE has developed a number ofpractices for conducting successful homevisits with immigrant family daycareproviders. These include partnering withtrusted community organizations andethnic media outlets to conduct out-
reach and to assure participants thatGBNE is not a licensing organizationthat will report conditions to authori-ties. GBNE also uses a variety of incen-tives and gifts to attract and maintainparticipation in its programs, includingdistributing children’s books, house-plants, and other useful items. Underthe Knight Foundation grant, GBNE isworking with 35 family providers over athree-year period.
• Trainings to become licensedproviders. As the trainer for the St.Mary Medical Center’s Families in GoodHealth program, GBNE offers a childdevelopment course to help low-incomerefugee women become licensed childcare providers. The course provides par-ticipants with extensive informationabout early childhood development andhow to facilitate children’s cognitive,emotional and social growth. In its firstyear, the program trained 42 Cambodianrefugee women, 11 of whom becamelicensed providers, the largest group ofSoutheast Asian women to becomelicensed at one time in Long Beach.
• Linking providers to communityresources. A key element of GBNE’s program is linking the clientele to com-munity resources, including programsoperated by nonprofits, libraries, andpublic schools. For instance, all of theparticipants in GBNE’s home visit pro-gram also participate in the Long BeachPublic Library Summer Reading and“Raising a Reader” book exchange pro-grams. In addition, GBNE provides par-ticipants with information about theavailability of children’s health insur-ance and offers classes on homeowner-ship and small business development.
Three years into its home visit program,GBNE has improved the quality of careprovided by its participating familyproviders, as demonstrated by:
• A reduction in the amount of timechildren spent watching television andan increase in literacy activities.
• Increase in the number of childrenenrolled in Head Start and other earlychildhood programs.
• Increase in immunizations andproviders’ awareness of nutrition, dentalhygiene, and home safety issues.
• Increase in providers’ knowledge ofhow to facilitate children’s social andemotional development.
PROMOTING FAMILY LITERACY
Research has documented the importanceof rich parent-child language interactionsduring early childhood. A preschooler’slanguage experiences at home lay thegroundwork for developing more sophis-ticated literacy skills during elementaryschool. Family literacy is a strategy thatcan help both immigrant adults andchildren learn English and literacy skills,while teaching parents how to supporttheir children’s cognitive and socialdevelopment in their everyday lives. Asdescribed in the English Acquisitionsection of this toolkit, successful familyliteracy programs for immigrant familiesusually have four components:
• ESL and adult education for immi-grant parents, as needed.
• Early childhood education to childrento bolster skills needed to succeed inschool.
• Training for parents to support theeducational growth of their children.
• Giving parents and children theopportunity to practice shared languagelearning and activities with the goal ofincreasing such activities at home.
Research indicates that high-qualityfamily literacy programs can increasethe cognitive and social development ofchildren and help them become betterprepared to learn in school.13 See the“Promising Practices in LanguageAcquisition” section of the toolkit for moreinformation about family literacy as wellas descriptions of successful programs.
11. Brandon, Peter. 2004. “The Child CareArrangements of Preschool-age Children inImmigrant Families in the United States.”International Migration Review 42(1):65-87.12. The Family Day Care Rating Scale assesses thequality of child care provided by a family child-careprogram. It assesses a provider in seven areas:space and furnishings for care and learning, basiccare, language and reasoning, learning activities,social development, adult needs, and provisions forexceptional children. For more information, go towww.fpg.unc.edu/~ecers. 13. Hayes, Andrew. 2001. High Quality FamilyLiteracy Programs: Child Outcomes and Impacts.Louisville, KY: National Center for Family Literacy.
Refugee Family Services’ Bilingual School Liaison Program Clarkston, Georgia www.refugeefamilyservices.org
One of the most common barriers toincreasing parental engagement amongimmigrants and refugees is the difficultymany parents have communicating witheducators in English. In addition, manyparents come from cultures in whichparental involvement with schools isnot the norm. Refugee Family Services(RFS), a nonprofit organization thatassists newcomer families in the Atlantaarea, has developed an innovative inter-preter program that serves parents inmultiple languages by rotating trainedparent liaison/interpreters across differ-ent schools. With funding from theGoizueta Foundation and the federalOffice of Refugee Resettlement, RFSstarted the Bilingual Liaison project in1999 through a partnership with theDeKalb County school system. Fourbilingual liaisons were initially assignedto 15 DeKalb schools that had the high-est concentration of English learners.Each liaison worked with LEP families tofacilitate communication with teachersand administrators, as well as to iden-tify difficulties or challenges faced bychildren of immigrants and refugees. By sharing resources across differentschools, the Bilingual Liaison Programhas been able to provide assistance innumerous languages. During the firstfive years of the program, RFS liaisonsassisted over 1,000 families.
Equally important, RFS liaisons haveidentified and worked with schools toaddress systemic issues affecting new-comer children by participating in theschool district’s International TaskForce, created to address gaps in educa-tional services for foreign-born students.Their involvement has led to the creationof education/parenting workgroups aspart of a year-long strategic planningeffort to prepare multiple service sectorsfor the incoming Somali Bantu refugeepopulation. In addition, the liaisonsparticipated in the district’s DiversityRoundtable, designed to give voice tothe multiethnic community served bythe county.
The School Liaison program has alsobeen instrumental in creating two newprograms to serve the district’s growingimmigrant and refugee population: TheRefugee Early Childhood LearningInitiative, through which refugee moth-ers learn how to help their childrenbecome school-ready, and the YouthSpecial Services Program serving at-riskrefugee youths.
The program has expanded to two addi-tional school districts. Eight liaisonscurrently serve newcomers in 60 schoolsand Head Start/preschool programs inthe Atlanta metropolitan area, providingservices in Spanish, Somali, Vietnamese,Amharic, Arabic, Bosnian, Farsi, Urdu,Kurdish, Oromo, Pashto, and Russian. Byserving as a bridge between schools andimmigrant families, the School Liaisonprogram only improves the academicachievement of immigrant children, butit demonstrates that language assistancecan be provided in a cost-effective waythrough creative collaborations thatshare resources across schools. TheRuddie Memorial Youth Foundation hasfunded an evaluation of the program toassess whether it can be disseminatedas a model for other communities.
Serving a mix-income Chicago neighbor-hood in which Latinos make up morethan two-thirds of the population, theLogan Square Neighborhood Association(LSNA) has led an extraordinary organ-izing effort to change local schools fromisolated institutions to community part-ners for learning and empowerment.LSNA first became involved with thelocal education system during the early1990s when its members organized acampaign for new schools to relieveovercrowding. Their efforts resulted inthe construction of five elementaryschool annexes and two middle schools,as well as strong relationships withlocal educators. Recognizing that
PROMISING PRACTICES: K-16
PUBLIC EDUCATION
Watch the DVDRain in a Dry Land:The Supermarket
The children of newly arrived immigrants must learn the ropes of
American life quickly. They often mustassume the roles of translator, advisor,
advocate, and protector for their LEP par-ents. The learning curve can be difficult,
as witnessed when a newly arrivedrefugee teen and his father struggle
with a supermarket transaction.
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adding new schools was only the firststep to improving education in a neigh-borhood where 90 percent of the publicschool students were from low-incomefamilies, LSNA developed collaborativeprograms with local schools to improvethe quality of education.
For over a decade, LSNA has operated a parent mentor program that bringsparents into the classroom—from pre-school through eighth grade—to providetutoring. LSNA trains parents (the vastmajority of whom are immigrants), provides each with an annual $1,200stipend, and places them into class-rooms to help teachers for two hourseach day. Spanish-speaking parents areplaced in bilingual classes and are ableto participate in the same activities asother parents. LSNA coordinates theprogram and holds weekly workshops toallow participants to share experiencesand discuss challenges.
Observers note that the program hasnot only provided students with extraattention and resources, but it hastransformed the relationship betweenparents and schools. The program hasattracted large numbers of immigrantwomen who have had no previous con-tact with schools even when their chil-dren were enrolled. Immigrant parents,who were intimidated by the educationsystem or felt their status as Spanishspeakers prevented participation in theirchildren’s education, found ways to helptheir schools through this program.
At the same time, their presenceallowed teachers and principals to learnmore about the needs of local familiesand to develop relationships based onmutual trust and respect with the grow-ing newcomer community.
Building upon the success of the ParentMentor program and recognizing thatschools are critical institutions for help-ing immigrants become self-sufficient,LSNA has worked with educators todevelop other projects, including:
• Literacy Ambassador Program, inwhich teams of teachers and parentshold house meetings to increase com-munity awareness and participation inschools. These meetings, held in thehomes of neighborhood families, high-light school resources and discuss howfamilies can help their children developliteracy and reading skills. The programpairs a teacher with a parent mentor tobridge any communication difficultiesbetween newcomer families andeducators.
• Community Learning Centers, in which six public schools becomeevening community learning centersoffering a wide range of adult educationclasses (ESL, family literacy, GED, com-puter, and citizenship) and children’sactivities (tutoring, arts, culture, andsports). Most of the classes are free andare taught by outside agencies, commu-nity college instructors, school teachers,parents, and volunteers. Because the
centers provide free child care, parentscan improve their skills while their chil-dren learn and play in a safe, enrichingenvironment. The centers are also aplace where immigrant parents canteach and experience their own culture.This program’s success has led the localschool district to open evening learningcenters in schools throughout the city.
• Nueva Generacion (“Grow YourOwn”) Bilingual Teacher PreparationProgram, in which parents who haveparticipated in the Parent Mentor pro-gram and want to become teachers canenroll in a six-year instructional programprovided by Chicago State University. Atthe end of the program, participantsreceive a four-year college degree andbecome certified, bilingual teachers whocan work in neighborhood schools.Approximately 60 percent of the initialclass of 30 students is expected tograduate in 2007.
LSNA’s programs have not only changedthe school’s dynamic with the localcommunity, but it has helped raisereading and math test scores in the sixschools that have had the Parent Mentorprogram for over five years. Test scoreshave increased by over 35 percent, andthe percentage of students who scoredin the lowest quartile on these achieve-ment tests have been cut in half.Equally important, LSNA’s work has alsotransformed many of the people whoparticipated in its programs. Many ofLSNA’s education project staff—includingmanagers of the Parent Mentor, LiteracyAmbassador, and Community LearningCenters programs—are immigrant womenwho initially participated in the ParentMentor program and have since becomeneighborhood leaders who regularlyspeak to policymakers, legislators, orreporters about educational issues. AsLSNA’s lead education organizer JoannaBrown observes, “They can say withconfidence that parental and communityinvolvement matters—it has improvedtheir schools and their neighborhood.”
Center for Latino Achievementand Success in EducationAthens, Georgiawww.coe.uga.edu/clase
Responding to the rapid growth of thelocal Latino population, the Universityof Georgia’s Center for Latino Achievementand Success in Education (CLASE) hasdeveloped an innovative project thatprovides high-quality professional devel-opment and technical assistance to localschool districts. Started with a grant bythe Goizueta Foundation in 2002, CLASEtrains over 100 educators each year in a week-long summer institute that pro-vides participants with information onbest practices for teaching English lan-guage learners, model curriculum andstrategies for instructing immigrant chil-dren in different academic subjects, cul-tural background on Georgia’s emergingLatino communities, and effective waysto increase parental involvement.
CLASE selects multiple teams of partici-pants from school districts or individualschools through a competitive process.Applicants propose specific projects forimproving Latino student educationalachievement and must demonstrate thatthey have the capacity and resources toimplement the project in the upcomingschool year. Following the summer insti-tute, CLASE provides technical assistanceto these teams throughout the academicyear. Typical projects include developingtrainings for teachers, increasing Latinoparent engagement, and implementingnew program ideas such as providingbilingual kindergarten instruction ormodified science instruction for Englishlearners. By combining training withfollow-up assistance, CLASE helps edu-cators put to use their newly acquiredknowledge to improve Latino educational
14. The analysis can be found atwww.coe.uga.edu/clase/professional_development.htm.
achievement. In addition to its summerinstitute program, CLASE organizes con-ferences on specific subject areas andleads Georgia teachers and administratorsin summer trips abroad to learn aboutlanguage, education, and culture.
Surveys combined with follow-up observations of individual projects illustrate that CLASE has had a signifi-cant impact in helping local educatorsdevelop new programs to serve thestate’s growing Latino population. Over90 percent of its summer program par-ticipants indicate that the CLASE trainingand technical assistance had a mediumto large influence in improving class-room instruction, attitudes, and pre-paredness for working with Latino students. As described more fully at itsweb site, CLASE has also documentedthe benefits of the projects undertakenby its summer institute participants,including those that increase studentachievement.14
PROMOTING THE SUCCESS OFENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
The PROMISE InitiativeSouthern California www.promise-initiative.org
More than one in every four students inCalifornia is an English language learner(ELL), the largest population in thecountry. And 65 percent of these stu-dents—over one million youngsters—are enrolled in six Southern Californiacounties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside,San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura.Of this number, less than seven percentpresently have access to both targetedEnglish language development and thefull demands of the core curriculum. Gapsin achievement are evident at every gradelevel and on every standardized test.
To address these growing disparities,the offices of education in the sixSouthern California counties have part-nered with California Tomorrow, astatewide organization that has beenpromoting cultural equity for 20 years,to create the PROMISE Initiative.
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Pursuing Regional Opportunities forMentoring, Innovation, and Success forEnglish Learners, known as PROMISE,seeks “to marshal the expertise andresources of the six counties by devel-oping a powerful infrastructure for conducting research and development,building capacity, and providing high-quality sustained support to schools,teachers, and providers.”
PROMISE’s unique approach does notattempt to implement a particular newcurriculum or instructional programdeveloped outside the schools. Rather,it relies on “principles-based reform,”helping schools reach a deep under-standing of current research and—through networked reflection, dialogue,assessment, and planning—design theirown programs for student success. Theaspiration of PROMISE is transformativein nature: To create a learning environ-ment in which bilingualism, biliteracy,and multiculturalism will activelyengage the experiences, skills, cultures,and languages of students in theirEnglish learning.
Distilled from the best of current researchon English learning and school change,PROMISE is built upon eight interrelatedcore principles:
• Enriched and Affirming LearningEnvironments that promote a sense ofcommunity, self-determination, trust,respect, and democracy among students.
• Empowering Pedagogy, with keystructural components that promoteinteraction among students, build stu-dent and family voice, and provideopportunities for leadership.
• Challenging and RelevantCurriculum that is cognitively complexand coherent enough to develop themental flexibility, problem-solving skills,and capacity for divergent thinking thatthe future will demand.
• High-Quality InstructionalResources aligned with relevant stan-dards yet enriched with graphics andaccessible formats to foster activeengagement.
• Valid and ComprehensiveAssessment integrated into learningand teaching, designed to promotereflective practice and data-drivenplanning.
• High-Quality ProfessionalPreparation and Support intended tofoster learning communities amongadministrators, teachers, and staff.
• Powerful Family and CommunityEngagement to build leadership amongparents, actively educating them anddrawing them into their children’s learn-ing, while helping teachers and admin-istrators develop cross-cultural skills.
• Advocacy-Oriented Administrativeand Leadership Systems to integrateand coordinate structures and mechanismsin support of the needs of ELL studentssystemically throughout the school’sprograms.
Although it does not prescribe particu-lar curricular approaches, PROMISE pro-vides planning tools to the schoolteams, as well as access to almost 30successful research-based programs thatembody the core principles.
Notwithstanding these rich resources,the creation of PROMISE as a six-countycollaboration to promote the success ofELL students, in and of itself, is animpressive accomplishment. The firstphase of PROMISE is a three-year pilotstudy focusing on systemic schoolreform, involving teams of three schoolsin each of the districts. The pilot willtest the implementation of the eightcore principles, honing in on whatworks and what doesn’t. The findingswill shape the five-year field test thatwill involve up to 100 schools.
Watch the DVDRain in a Dry Land:
Algebra ClassPublic schools in America have differentways of integrating immigrant students
into the classroom. Sit in on a fast-pacedhigh school algebra class as a caringteacher observes the capabilities of a recently arrived refugee boy and wonders how to grade and support
him when they don’t share a language.
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DEVELOPING A PATH TO COLLEGE FOR LATINO STUDENTS
The ENLACE Initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Battle Creek, Michiganwww.wkkf.org
In 1999, the W.K. Kellogg Foundationlaunched a national initiative tostrengthen the educational pipeline for Latino youth and to increase thenumber of Latino high school andcollege graduates. Known as ENLACE or “Engaging Latino Communities forEducation,” the initiative is designed tobe a comprehensive, community-basedcollaborative effort among colleges anduniversities, public schools, businesses,and community organizations. The initiative supports 13 partnerships inseven states that provide a wide rangeof activities to keep Latino studentsengaged in education from preschool allthe way through college. Although manyprojects are service oriented (e.g.,tutoring and mentoring), the collabora-tion among educational institutions andcommunity groups has facilitated changesin local and state educational policies.
The Kellogg Foundation is expected tocontribute more than $35 million toENLACE by the end of 2007. While fewfoundations have the resources toundertake such a large project, the lessonslearned and promising practices devel-oped by ENLACE projects at the locallevel can inform other philanthropicefforts and be replicated on a smallerscale. This section includes severalexamples of promising projects thatwere developed by ENLACE partners. For more information, see reports andpromising practices on the ENLACE website at www.wkkf.org.
15. Three separate ENLACE grants were provided inNew Mexico: Albuquerque, Northern New Mexico,and Southern New Mexico. The shared goal of theseprograms is to empower the community, students,and educators in the state to work together toimprove the public education system and increasestudent success. For more information, go towww.enlaceinnewmexico.com. 16. Carrillo-Cruz, Lynn. 2005. “ENLACE LosCompañeros Mentoring Program Evaluation Report.”Albuquerque, NM: ENLACE New Mexico.
Los Compañeros MentoringProgram New Mexico ENLACE
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a primaryENLACE project has been to develop aholistic, culturally relevant mentoringprogram to promote academic and per-sonal success among middle and highschool Latino students.15 Called the LosCompañeros, the program is open to all students but works primarily withyouths who are having difficulty withschool. Its goal is to improve their academic performance and help themplan for college.
Started in 2001, Los Compañeros programhas trained Latino college and graduatestudents to provide one-on-one mentor-ing to middle- or high-school students.The mentor, who receives college workstudy, meets with the younger studenton a daily basis to help improve schoolperformance, as well as to assist withpersonal, emotional, and psychologicalchallenges. While mentors spend abouthalf of their time tutoring students onhomework and basic skills, they alsowork with the students on improvinginterpersonal skills, intervene withteachers or school administrators asneeded, and engage parents in theirchildren’s education, including providinginterpretation when meeting withteachers or school administrators. Arecent evaluation of the program found
it had successfully helped studentsremain in school and improve theirgrades.16 Of the original cohort of 90students who had started in the programduring sixth grade, only four haddropped out by the end of the ninthgrade. Depending on the school, between47 and 72 percent of the original par-ticipants achieved a GPA that was atleast equal to or higher than theirentering GPA. The mentoring programalso reduced behavior referrals and disciplinary actions and increased students’ academic expectations. TheENLACE staff attributes the program’ssuccess to several factors:
• Cultural competence. The mentorscome from the same community as theyounger students and are bicultural andbilingual. They are aware of the challengesLatino students face and understandhow to communicate with students andtheir families. These shared similaritiesmake it easier for mentors to build thetrust needed to play an important rolein the lives of the youths.
• Intensive mentoring. Each mentormust spend a minimum of 20 hours perweek in the program during the schoolyear, with the majority of the timedevoted to one-on-one interactionswith students.
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• Working with the entire family.Mentors are trained to work both withthe individual students, as well asaddress the conditions in their familiesthat inhibit learning and academicprogress. Many of the mentors workclosely with ENLACE Family Centers,staffed by Latino parents and commu-nity organizations, to provide familieswith the educational and social servicesneeded to help their children succeed.
• Collaboration. Los Compañeros collaborates with educators at middleschools, high schools, and higher edu-cation institutions to address systemicissues and propose policies that canimprove student learning (e.g., betterschool communications with LEP par-ents and supplemental educationalinstruction activities). By having repre-sentatives of local educational programsat the table, the ENLACE program helpsstudents, parents, community members,and educators work together to addresstheir shared interest in improving student performance.
Because the mentoring program isalmost exclusively staffed by collegework-study students, its other costs arelow as $128 per student annually or anaverage of $0.70 per student per schoolday, according to the Los Compañerosproject director.
The Santa Ana PartnershipSanta Ana ENLACESanta Ana, California
The Santa Ana Partnership—a collabora-tion of higher education institutionsand the local school district—originallycame together in 1983 in response tothe rapidly changing demographics ofthe Santa Ana Unified School District.Recognizing that the school populationwas growing and becoming increasinglyLatino and LEP, the Partnership developededucational policies and programs toaddress newcomer student needs. Overthe years, Santa Ana schools havechanged their curriculum and graduationrequirements, expanded supplementaleducational activities, and developedinnovative parental involvement programs.16
Although the quality of education forimmigrant children in the district hasimproved, finding ways to providefinancial support for students who qual-ify for college but do not have theresources remains an ongoing challenge.This challenge is especially daunting forundocumented students who make up asignificant segment of the Santa Anaschool-age population. Most of thesestudents came to the United States yearsago as children; they grew up in thiscountry, stayed in school, and workedhard to earn a high school degree.
If passed, the proposed bi-partisan leg-islation, known as the DREAM Act, willimprove access to higher education forundocumented students.17 As this legis-lation is debated and even if it were to
pass, the Santa Ana Partnership recog-nizes that there needs to be financialresources to help these students accesshigher education.
For the Partnership, it is part of thelarger problem of helping low-incomeimmigrant students attend college evenif they have very limited resources. AsSara Lundquist, Vice President of SantaAna College and a coordinator of thelocal ENLACE project, stated, “We donot want youths to lose the opportunityto become professionals and becomeproductive members of society… If theydon’t go to college now, their livescould turn out dramatically different,and our communities will have lost outon an educated, promising group ofyoung immigrants.”
To help raise resources for these college-qualified youths, the Santa AnaPartnership has developed fundraisingprograms and actively encourages busi-nesses, foundations, and even smalldonors to contribute to privately fundedscholarships and education funds thatdo not exclude individuals based onimmigration status. As Ms. Lundquistexplained, “These funds are not setaside for any particular group, but theyallow all college-eligible students tocompete based on their academicachievements and financial need.”
The Santa Ana Partnership has success-fully worked with a growing number oflocal foundations and philanthropists toprovide college scholarships to immi-grant youths. While their specific goalsvary, all of these funds are designed tosupplement federal and state financialaid programs by helping students whootherwise cannot go to college. Withfew limited exceptions, these scholar-ships do not exclude students based ontheir immigration status. The localfunds include:
• Santa Ana 2000 Scholarship,which was established by the City ofSanta Ana, Santa Ana Unified SchoolDistrict, and Rancho Santiago CommunityCollege District’s Santa Ana College in
16. For more detailed description of the partner-ship accomplishments, go to www.sac.edu/commu-nity/partnerships/enlace/index.htm. 17. For more information about the DREAM Act, goto www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/DREAM/index.htm.
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1994 as part of an ambitious, long-terminitiative to make higher educationaccessible to all local high school grad-uates via Santa Ana College. The cityappropriated $900,000 in seed money to launch the program, which is comple-mented by individual contributions fromemployees at the city, school district,and college. Approximately 50 scholar-ships are awarded annually, providingeach student with $1,000 over two years.
• The Hispanic EducationEndowment Fund, which is a regionalresource that provides scholarships forLatino students attending higher educa-tion institutions. Formed by a coalitionof educational, community, faith-based,and business groups, and administeredby the Orange County CommunityFoundation, it administers a portfolio of28 sub-funds that makes approximately350 scholarship grants totaling over$700,000 annually.
• The Santa Ana Education Fund,which holds monies raised by the localschool district to assist academicallytalented and motivated college students.Approximately $100,000 in direct schol-arship assistance is provided annually tothe district’s graduates.
• The Santa Ana College Foundationawards more than a quarter of a milliondollars annually to incoming, continu-ing, and transferring Santa Ana Collegestudents who otherwise cannot afford toattend college.
18. Woodlief, Blaze, Catherine Thomas, and GracielaOroaco. 2003. California’s Gold: Claiming thePromise of Diversity in Our Community Colleges.Oakland, CA: California Tomorrow.
THE DEVELOPMENT,RELIEF & EDUCATION
FOR ALIEN MINORS
(DREAM) ACT
At the national level, an estimated65,000 students graduate from highschool each year but are ineligible forfinancial aid because they are undocu-mented. The majority are young peoplewho have lived in the U.S. most of theirlives, having come to the United Stateswith their parents when they wereyoung. While they are ready to attendcollege, become professionals, andcontribute to society, they face a num-ber of barriers. They often do not havethe financial resources to attend college,are unable to work because of theirundocumented status, and live in fear ofbeing detected by immigration officials.
A bipartisan supported bill, known asthe DREAM Act, would provide immi-gration relief to these students if theyattend college. The proposed law wouldallow students brought to the UnitedStates more than five years ago whenthey were 15-years old or younger, andcan demonstrate good moral character,to apply for a conditional immigrationstatus that would provide six years oflegal residency. During the six-yearperiod, they must (1) graduate from atwo-year college, (2) complete at leasttwo years towards a four-year degree,or (3) serve in the U.S. military for atleast two years. Students who meetthese requirements would be eligible toapply for permanent-residency status. A similar version of the bill, introducedin 2004, was sponsored by 48 U.S.Senators and 152 U.S. representatives,but as of spring 2006, neither theHouse nor the Senate has had a floorvote on this important bill.
As these fundraising efforts expand, theSanta Ana Partnership hopes to workthrough the ENLACE project to developstatewide models that leverage privatesector resources to help bring highereducation within the reach of moreimmigrant students.
LEVERAGING COMMUNITYCOLLEGES
City College of San Francisco San Francisco, California www.ccsf.cc.ca.us
Community colleges are particularlyimportant educational institutions forimmigrant adults. They help integratenewcomers by providing English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) courses, vocational training, basic adult education,and access to other education opportu-nities. Research suggests that newcom-ers are 20 percent more likely thanU.S.-born college students to begintheir higher education experience at acommunity college.18 In many states,immigrants are rapidly becoming a largesegment of the community college student population.
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Successful community colleges haveresponded to these demographic changesby developing new educational practicesthat help newcomers become self-suffi-cient and productive. These include:
• Providing targeted outreach, oftenin multiple languages, to inform new-comers of ESL, vocational programs, andother educational opportunities.
• Hiring bilingual staff in public contact positions, support programs,and counseling.
• Developing strong English acquisi-tion programs and linking vocationaltraining and educational programs sothat newcomers can develop other skillsas they are learning English.
• Providing class schedules and curric-ula that respond to the realities ofworking immigrants’ lives.
• Developing programs and proceduresthat encourage immigrant students topursue higher education opportunities(e.g., moving from ESL courses to voca-tional training, noncredit to creditclasses, certificate to full-time study,and two-year to four-year institutions).
• Building partnerships with businesses,government agencies, and immigrantorganizations to address the educationalneeds of this fast-growing community.
City College of San Francisco has been anational leader in providing innovativeeducation to newcomers. With approxi-mately 106,000 students, eight majorcampuses and over 150 classroom siteslocated in community centers, churches,public schools, and government offices,City College makes extensive efforts tohave its educational programs be broadlyavailable. About half of the studentspursuing associate degrees are immi-grants. Forty percent of City College’snew students take the ESL placementtest, and ESL is its largest department,with almost 25,000 students. To serveits large newcomer student population,City College has taken a number of stepsto address their educational goals:
• Developing curricula that addressthe needs of immigrant adults. Inaddition to offering basic ESL classes,City College has been a national leader
in developing “bridge” programs thathelp immigrants progress toward theirother educational or career goals whilelearning English. Many of its vocationaltraining courses, for example, requireonly basic English skills, thereby allowingnewcomers to develop job skills whileenrolled in ESL. In addition, City Collegeoffers a large number of courses thatintegrate academic content or vocationaltraining into ESL classes. These includeESL citizenship classes to help newcom-ers naturalize, intensive vocational ESLimmersion courses to help low-incomenewcomers find mainstream employment,and occupational-specific vocational ESLprograms that help immigrant workersprepare for jobs in the fields of healthcare, child care, construction, hotels,and the food industry. Recognizing thatmany immigrants already have valuablevocational skills, City College also workswith community organizations and busi-nesses to help foreign-born health workers,doctors, and engineers improve theirEnglish, obtain professional credentials,and receive training so that they can fullyutilize their skills in the United States.
• Providing courses that easily fitinto the lives of immigrant workers.Because many immigrant adults worklong hours or multiple jobs, finding timeto attend classes is often challenging.City College has made special efforts to“fit” their courses into the lives ofimmigrants by offering frequent eveningand weekend classes and making themavailable at satellite campuses or com-munity centers in neighborhoods whereimmigrants live or work. For instance,the college’s Chinatown campus holdsthe largest group of ESL classes onSunday mornings because many studentswork six days a week and cannot attendclass at any other time. City College alsotries to make it easier for ESL studentsto further their education and pursuecertificates or degrees as they learn newskills by offering both noncredit andcredit classes at most campuses.
• Providing support to immigrantstudents. City College’s LearningAssistance Center provides academicsupport to all students but has specific
programs to address newcomer needs.Students who are enrolled in credit ESLclasses are eligible for individual tutoring,and the Center serves almost 12,000students annually. City College alsoholds regular ESL workshops, providescomputer laboratories for students tolearn and practice English and voca-tional skills, and offers career counseling.
• Working with the local communityto address immigrants’ educationneeds. A characteristic of City Collegethat especially stands out is its willing-ness to collaborate with communityorganizations, government agencies, andbusinesses to address the community’seducation needs. As discussed in the“Promising Practices in EnglishAcquisition” section of this toolkit, City College responded to large-scaleclosures of local garment factories in2005 by collaborating with immigrantorganizations and unions to re-trainhundreds of displaced workers. Similarly,when a community health organizationasked City College to help train bilingualworkers, it initially created a coursethat taught students basic health termsso that they could work alongside pro-fessional medical staff. However, as thedemand for bilingual health workerscontinued to increase in the Bay Area,the College developed both a certificateprogram for community health workersand a transfer program that allows bilin-gual students to earn up to a master’sdegree in public health. Many of theseinnovative programs require City Collegeto seek funding from foundations, private donors, and other alternativesources. Private foundation grantsreceived by City College for immigrantrelated program include The CaliforniaEndowment and MetLife Foundation.
These programs have not only helpedtens of thousands of newcomers improvetheir English and find better employment,but they have opened the door toadvance education. The number of thecollege’s ESL students who transfer tofour-year colleges has increased 63 percent since 1999.
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EVALUATING EDUCATION EFFORTS
OUTPUTS
• Parent involvement.
• Parent/student bonding with school.
• Family norms that value education.
• Community support.
• Culturally competent educators.
• Academic support and appropriate curriculum for LEP students.
• Provision of high-quality college and career counseling.
• Access to scholarships and other opportunities and resources.
• Students’ participation in extracurricular activities.
OUTCOMES
For all immigrants, regardless of immigration status:
• An inclusive school environment.
• Increased school readiness.
• Improved academic performance.
• Higher aspirations and hope.
• Increased access to higher education.
These outputsencourage civicparticipation, andas participationincreases, theseoutputs will alsobecome morewidespread.
These outcomesencourage integration, and as integration gradually occurs,these outcomeswill also becomemore widespread.
Education is crucial to immigrant inte-gration because it helps put the immi-grant on a path towards economic sta-bility, which in turn allows the immi-grant to have access to additionalopportunities and resources.
Further, a good education from earlychildhood will better prepare children ofimmigrants for the next level of educa-tion and, eventually, post-secondary andhigher education.
The following figure provides sampleoutputs and outcomes that funders canutilize to evaluate the effectiveness ofeducation programs serving immigrantfamilies.
IMM
IGRANT IN
TEGRATION
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EVALUATING EDUCATION EFFORTS
Indicators associated with school readiness among young immigrantchildren, improved academic achieve-ment for immigrant children and youthof all ages, and higher aspirations forhigh school immigrant students include:
• Percentage of children with age-appropriate developmental skills andpositive behaviors (e.g., little to no dif-ficulty following directions, recognitionof basic shapes and the relationshipbetween letters and sounds).
• Improved standardized test scoresand grades.
• Increased graduation rates (highschool and college).
• Increased GED completion rate.
• Percentage of graduates going tovocational training programs or highereducation institutions.
Examples of indicators associated withan inclusive school environment include:
• Percent of immigrant parent volunteers in school.
• Frequency of interaction betweenimmigrant parents and their children’steachers.
• Percentage of immigrant parentwho belong to the Parent TeacherAssociation or any parent associationsand actively attend meetings.
• Events that celebrate academicachievement (e.g., graduation ceremonies)and role models among immigrant students and graduates.
• Inclusion of the culture and historyof different immigrant groups in theschool curriculum.
• Percentage of teachers who sharethe same cultural background or speakthe same language as their immigrantstudents.
• Receipt of scholarships and otheropportunities and resources amongimmigrant parents and students.
There are many ways to collect theabove data, depending on whatresources are available for the evalua-tion. For example, an evaluator couldtrack grades, conduct a survey of immi-grant parents to gauge their knowledge
of scholarships and other opportunitiesand resources available to their children,follow-up with immigrant students whosought post-secondary education andtrack their academic progress, or workwith children and youth to documenttheir hopes and aspirations.
SOURCES:
Consultative Session on Increasing EnglishLanguage Learning By Low-Income ImmigrantParents And Children, November 30-December 1,2005. Sponsored by the Annie E. CaseyFoundation.
Rhode Island KIDS COUNT. 2005. Getting Ready:Findings from the National School ReadinessIndicators Initiative. Report sponsored by TheDavid and Lucile Packard Foundation, KaufmanFoundation, and Ford Foundation.
Martinez, T.E. and Ted Wang. 2005. SupportingEnglish Language Acquisition: Opportunities forFoundations to Strengthen the Social andEconomic Well-Being of Immigrant Families.Sebastopol, CA: Grantmakers Concerned withImmigrants and Refugees and the Annie E. CaseyFoundation.
