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?