Why Parents Move Their Children Away From Schools With Immigrants?

There are bad parents and "monsters", of course, among all parents.

But most parents always want the best for their children. Parents act according to their belief systems and ideologies, and this shapes their efforts to help and guide their offspring. Only in extremely rare instances parents willingly choose not to give the best reasonable option to their children.

In many countries, parents go to a lot of trouble to put their children to a ‘better’ school. Usually it also means avoiding a school with lots of immigrants, or choosing a school with only a few immigrants. A 2007 government report in Dublin, Ireland found that ‘since 2003, more than half of students were leaving Dublin 15 schools before reaching age 12, when they would normally transfer to secondary schools in the district’ presumably due to the high percentage of immigrants in the schools.

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Researchers in Copenhagen, Denmark have even found a quantifiable limit of immigrant population (35%), for parent’s choice of schools. If the proportion of immigrants is lower, the parents may consider keeping their children there. Significantly, immigrants who speak fluent Danish at home and have assimilated rather well, also exhibit similar behaviour (Rangvid, 2009).

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Too Much Maths is Bad For Some Children

Geeky kids from Asian backgrounds excel in maths, while others don’t – this is a common stereotype in USA.

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Parents (from non-Asian backgrounds) in California’s Silicon Valley move their kids away from high schools because they think that the schools are “too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as maths and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurricular activities like sports and other personal interests” (Hwang, Suein. 2005).

Are Schools With More Immigrants Bad Schools?

Parents who take their children away from schools with many immigrants believe they are. Are the parents wrong?

How do we know if a school is good or bad?

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Formally, schools are assessed differently in different countries. Whether countries test samples of students at selected points or over time or take part in international assessment systems such as PISA, the effectiveness of learning outcomes is a common factor of school evaluation. The OECD Review of Evaluation and Assessment Frameworks for Improving Schools gives five challenges in evaluating schools:

1. Governance and Implementation
2. Student Assessment
3. Teacher Evaluation
4. School Evaluation
5. System Evaluation.

Parents, of course, cannot use such sophisticated methods, but usually rely on reputation of school, how students get places in higher education, rumours and anecdotes from other parents. One factor in such discussions may be the unquestioned perception that a high number of immigrants overburden teachers and school administration resulting in a deterioration of overall school performance.

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All over the world, immigrant children are found more in large urban areas than in villages. The Urban Institute of USA claimed that in 2000, 68% of the total number of immigrant children lived in urban areas in six ‘major destination’ states.  

It is widely assumed that children of immigrants, as they have not ‘assimilated’ well enough and as their social and economic environment is not on the same level as the natives, are more at risk of failing in school and becoming delinquents.

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Research has proved this assumption wrong. According to Brown University, USA researchers Evelyn Hu-DeHart and Cynthia Garcia Coll many children of first generation immigrants outperform natives and even second and third generation immigrants in school performance and significantly rate higher in attitudes and ‘out-of-school positive behaviors’. This immigrant paradox is a very contested phenomenon and seems to apply to some age groups and settings better (Crosnoe, 2011).

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But, this issue is infinitely more complicated with too many incipient factors to draw any simple conclusions. Consider the following findings:

• Maths scores of Mexican-heritage children in USA decline from the first to the third generation, though their English skills increase (Hernandez, 1999).
• Violence and substance abuse increased from first to third generation for Mexican-Heritage children but not for children of Chinese descent (Zehr, 2009, p.12).

Immigrant children acculturate and learn better English in USA, some (not all) “buy into the notion of minorities here that even if you work hard and play hard discrimination is going to get at you (and presumably discourage you from trying harder) and even start learning from peers who are gang members” (Zehr, 2009, p.12).

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So, perception of school quality and how children benefit from school depends on many factors. Schools with more immigrants are not automatically bad schools.

Do immigrant children lower the quality of native education?

• “Poorly educated immigrants’ kids drag everyone else down.”
• “Oh you know, their parents can’t assimilate here and are not good role models and they learn all the bad things and our kids also become bad.”
• “What can the poor teachers do to control those unruly children of immigrants who are disadvantaged and don’t fit in? Our kids suffer from this kind of bad role models.”

These are some not-politically correct opinions I have heard. 

Is it true that immigrants’ children drag native children down?

The answer depends on whom you ask. Research by OECD (2012), Schnepf (2007) and Dustmann et al. (2011) claim large performance gaps between native and immigrant students.

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In schools with large number of immigrants and natives in the same classes, some teachers may slow the pace of instruction so that no one falls behind due to language or previous education handicaps and teachers may also lower expectations for all the students. There is some research evidence from Texas, USA (Chin et al., 2012) to support this.

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So, rather than something being inherently wrong about immigrants’ ethnicities, factors causing immigrant disadvantage, according to (Dronkers et al., 2012), can be:

• Language problems
• The characteristics of origin and host countries’ educational systems and cultural differences

What about the opposite evidence that immigrants do not affect native’s school performance negatively?

Geay et al, (2013) have found that in the UK, findings rule out any negative effects of non-native speakers of English in the classroom and on pupil performance. This difference in educational achievement carries onto later life as well. The share of the foreign born population with tertiary education exceeds that of the native-borns by a whopping 16.1 percentage points in the UK (Dustmann and Glitz, 2011).

Do Immigrant Children Actually Have an Advantage Over Non-Immigrant Kids?

Yes, sometimes. Lingxin Hao and Han S. Woo of Johns Hopkins University (2012) suggest the following factors that provide advantage for Hispanic 1.5 generation (people who immigrate to a new country before or during their early teens) children in USA over natives. So, what gives immigrant children an edge?

1. Family
2. Tight-knit interaction within immigrant communities
3. Ability to benefit from ‘dual-culture’ heritage by combining the best of both cultures

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Data from the Labor Department’s American Time Use Surveys from 2003 to 2010 shows that teenagers whose parents were immigrants spent an average of 26 minutes more per day on education-related activities than their counterparts with native-born parents.

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If native children ‘suffer’ from immigrants, does it tell more about them and their abilities than about the immigrants?

Research from Italy shows that natives from low socio-economic background may ‘suffer’ more from a large number of immigrant children but children from a higher socio-economic background do not suffer and even seem to benefit.

Though I teach adults and not children, I appreciate immigrants or visiting non-native students in my teaching situations. Why? They tend to be more curious and ask questions. This always generates more learning than silent absorption. Many people consider education as fact- or knowledge gathering. This assumption of mind being an empty vessel is a poor man’s (or woman’s) paradigm. Plutarch (Roman historian, 46-120 AD) was cutting edge modern when he said, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

  

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Bibliography:

• Chin, Aimee, N Meltem Daysal and Scott A Imberman (2012), “Impact of Bilingual Education Programs on Limited English Proficient Students and Their Peers: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Texas”, IZA Discussion Paper, 6694.
• Contini, Dalit. Immigrant background peer effect in Italian schools. Social Science Research. Volume 42, Issue 4, July 2013, Pages 1122-1142.
• Crosnoe, Robert. “Diversity in the Immigrant Paradox in the Mexican-Origin Population,” in The Immigrant Paradox in Children and Adolescents: Is Becoming an American a Development Risk? Eds. Cynthia Garcia-Coll and Amy Marks. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2011: 61-76.
• Dronkers, J.M., de Heus M., Levels M. 2012. “Immigrant Pupils’ Scientific Performance: the Influence of Educational System Features of Countries of Origin and Destination”. European University Institute Working Paper
• Dustmann, C., Frattini T., Lanzara G. 2011. “Educational Achievement of Second Generation Immigrants: An International Comparison.” Centro Studi Luca D’Agliano Development Studies WP, 314.
• Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht. 2011. “Migration and Education,” Norface Discussion Paper Series 2011011, Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London.
• Geay, Charlotte, McNally Sandra and Shqiponja Telhaj (2013), ”Non-native Speakers of English in the Classroom: What are the Effects on Pupil Performance?”, Economic Journal, August 2013.
• Rangvid, B. S. (2009). “School Choice, Universal Vouchers and Native Flight from Local Schools”. European Sociological Review 26 (3): 319–335.
• Hernandez, Donald J. and Katherine Darke (1999), “Socioeconomic and Demographic Risk Factors and Resources among Children in Immigrant and Native-Born Families: 1910, 1960, and 1990”. Pp. 19-125 in Donald J. Hernandez (ed.), Children of Immigrants: Health, Adjustment, and Public Assistance, Washington, DC: National Academy Press
• Hwang, Suein (November 19, 2005). “The New White Flight”. The Wall Street Journal. (subscription required) (or, see http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/001430.html
• Mary Ann Zehr, “Scholars Mull the ‘Paradox’ of Immigrants: Academic Success Declines From 1^st to 3^rd Generation,” Education Week, vol. 28, no. 25, March 18, 2009, pp. 1 and 12.
• OECD. 2012. “Untapped Skills. Realizing the potential of immigrant students”, OECD
• Schnepf, S. V. 2007. “Immigrants’ Educational Disadvantage: an Examination across Ten Countries and Three Surveys.” Journal of Population Economics 20:527-545