Monday, March 30, 2009

Inquiry Project Topic

The focus of my inquiry project will be the education of immigrants or the children of immigrants and the impact that it has on the economy of the urban school district. This will focus primarily on the distribution of educational resources within a school system that has at least half of its student population are foreign-born or children of foreign-born parents. This includes looking at the funds that go into ESL and bilingual education and other related requirements for those new to the United States that may otherwise go towards classroom spending and extracurricular activities for all students. Given its status as a high-immigrant urban school district, much of my focus will be on Perth Amboy City. Here, a large number of students are from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, or have parents from these countries. I will attempt to discover the extent to which the scarce resources of an urban school district are able to cope with producing an effective education for both immigrants and native-born students.

My project will initially look at the data provided by the New Jersey Schools Report Card. This will give me numbers related to students whose first language is not English, as well as information regarding cost-per-pupil in comparison to the state of New Jersey as a whole. This, along with other pertinent information will allow me to compare to other school districts that are wealthier but have a large immigrant population, as well as urban and suburban districts with very few immigrants or children of immigrants within the student population. The Report Card will prove to be a reliable source of information when it comes to the matter of numbers.

The rest of my data will come from interviews with teachers and administrators at a Perth Amboy school. I am in the process of getting permission and arranging dates for these interviews. Interviewees will include at least one teacher, as well as the head of the bilingual education program at the school. From them I will be able to gain a greater insight into what the program entails, where it gets its funding from and the impact this has on funding for programs for the native-born students at the school.

NJ Schools Report Card information for Perth Amboy can be found at:
http://education.state.nj.us/rc/rc08/dataselect.php?c=23;d=4090;s=050;lt=CD;st=CD&datasection=all

Interview Questions
Questions I hope to ask during the course of interviews will include the following. Questions will vary from interviewee to interviewee.
- What do you see as the first need that must be met for immigrant students and do you feel your district meets it?
- What kind of programs does your school provide to accommodate those newly entered into the country?
- Do you have a bilingual education program at the school and how many students are enrolled in it?
- What do you feel are the successes and limitations of any of these programs?
- What kind of afterschool care is provided for immigrant students specifically and all students in general?
- Do you have any feeling that anything is inappropriately funded?
- The NJ Schools Report Card gives average cost per pupil for all students. What would you estimate would it cost the district per non-US student vs. per-US student?
- Is there any sense that non-immigrant students are being left out in away because of the focus on immigrant students?
- What is the relationship between immigrant and non-immigrant students like in general? What about between bilingual students with greater English proficiency?

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Conger, D. (2005). Within-School Segregation in an Urban School District. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 27 (3) 225-244. Retrieved March, 12 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3699570

Article looks into segregation in elementary school classrooms in New York City. It is one of the first pieces to actively look into the effect of segregation between native-born and foreign-born students, as well as between ethnic groups. The author looks at data that covers a five year period between 1996 and 2001 to compare interschool segregation and within-school segregation. Finds that within-school segregation is high for foreign-born students, mainly due to their special educational needs, and proposes further studies into the effect that this exclusion may have on the students’ development.



Haskins, R., Greenberg, M. & Fremstad, S. (2004). Federal Policy for Immigrant Children: Room for Common Ground? The Future of Children. 14 (2) A publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution. Retrieved March, 12 2009, from http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2004/summer_demographics_haskins.aspx

Policy brief looks into several ways that the well-being of immigrant children in the United States can be improved, specifically in the areas of public benefits, education, and economic mobility. Looks into a variety of federal and state programs and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses in terms of improving the education opportunities for immigrant children. Authors argue that both underperforming and better-performing schools need improved funding for English-language education and better quality preschool programs.



Perreira, K. M., Harris, K. M., & Lee, D. (2006). Making It in America: High School Completion by Immigrant and Native Youth. Demography, 43 (3) 511-536. Retrieved March, 12 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4137246

Article compares the drop-out rate between three groups of students – recent immigrants, children of immigrants, and native-born Americans (in this case defined as third- and higher- generation Americans) by ethnicity. Authors analyze several theories to explain the lack of success of recent immigrants and later generations when compared to the results of U.S.-born children with foreign-born parents. Uses extensive research to posit their own theories for these results. Argues for better support systems for foreign-born students and greater effort to “reconnect” later generations with academic achievement.


van Hook, J. (2002). Immigration and African American Educational Opportunity: The Transformation of Minority Schools. Sociology of Education, 75 (2) 169-189. Retrieved March, 12 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3090290

Article investigates whether the presence of non-English speaking immigrant students affects the education of African-Americans in the same schools. Acknowledges the limited amount of existing data on the subject, and concludes that there are few parts of the country where African-American and foreign-born students are educated together. In areas where this is the case, the possibility remains that there could be a negative effect due to a redistribution of resources to comply with government regulations for the education of non-English proficient students.



Schwartz, A. E. & Stiefel, L. (2004). Immigrants and the Distribution of Resources within an Urban School District. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 26 (4) 303-327. Retrieved March, 12 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3699510

Investigation into whether schools that have more immigrant students get fewer resources than those that cater to mainly native-born students because of the costs of immigrants’ special educational needs or discrimination against immigrants. The article includes a thorough analysis of the numbers of foreign-born students in New York City elementary schools and the resources that are spent on them. It also differentiates between in-classroom and non-classroom spending in order to analyze the effect that immigrant needs have on each.

This piece is quick to make note of discrepancies in resource allocation caused by larger schools and by the variation in the amount of non-English proficient students in each school but argue that their hypotheses remain unchanged by these. Similarly, the authors note that there are differences between the results for foreign-born students based on their country of origin. This brings up stark differences between the needs of different groups of immigrants – some are more likely to require ESL education than others in one case, while test score results also seem to be based on country of origin.

Concludes that there is a slight negative discrepancy in schools that cater to foreign-born, but it is often made up for by the presence of more experienced teachers. These differences are predominantly found in non-classroom spending – ESL education and other requirements take up money that would normally go to counseling services, among others – while there is little difference in classroom spending.

The article is interesting in that it touches on differences between immigrant groups in terms of needs, resources and test scores. However, there is little discussion on the impact of these varying resources on native-born students. Similarly, more details on the differences between differing countries of origin of foreign-born students would have been enlightening, but that could be a whole article in and of itself.