Enhancing Education: The Immigrant Effect in U.S. Schools

>> Paola Sapienza: Over the past 50 years, immigration into the United States has risen dramatically, resulting in a high concentration of foreign-born students in public schools. The rise of immigrant students in U.S. classrooms has generated serious debate and parental worry about the immediate and long-term effects of immigration on the quality of public education, the educational outcomes of U.S.-born students and the perceived cost that immigrants may impose on public schools.

 

Some of these perceived challenges are due to immigrants' diverse cultural backgrounds, their limited knowledge of the US educational system, their lower-than-average household income, and the fact that many speak English as a second language. Taken together, this perception has led many to believe that the challenges immigrants face in assimilation may require additional school resources, which could be taken away from U.S.-born students, hampering their success in the classroom.

 

Our comprehensive 10-year study of Florida K through 12 public schools offers valuable insight into this important question. We study how the presence of immigrant students affects US-born students and find that exposure to immigrant students, on average, has a positive effect on the academic achievement of US-born students.

 

Moving from a classroom with very few immigrants to one with a substantial immigrant presence actually increases math scores and reading scores of U.S.-born students in a sizable way. Most notably, this positive effect is twice as large for disadvantaged U.S.-born students, including black students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

 

We also explored potential mechanisms for the positive effect that immigrants presence in classroom has on U.S.-born students. One area of focus was the role of immigrant family cultural orientation for academic achievement. Students from cultures that emphasize self-control and delayed gratification, such Asian and Asian American, tend to outperform non-immigrant students with similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

 

Our analysis shows results consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to students with these traits positively impact US-born students own attitude towards schools. We also study the impact of disciplinary behavior in the classroom, especially in low income schools. Immigrant students are less disruptive than their US born peers. Less disruptive behaviour makes the classroom environment more conducive to learning for all students.

 

Especially in the classroom where US born students are disadvantaged, immigrant students often outperform their peers and appear to serve as positive role models in schools with more affluent U.S.-born students. Instead, the immigrants are generally poorer than their US born classmates. Even in these circumstances. When immigrant students have lower average academic performance than affluent U.S.-born students, their presence doesn't negatively affect these higher performing students.

 

This suggests that cultural attributes and attitudes of immigrant students enhance the learning environment for all students but especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Rather than placing a burden on the educational system, immigrant diversity appears to enhance it. Immigrant innovation is economically vital to the United States. 50% of US startups valued at 1 billion or more have at least one immigrant founder and immigrant-owned firms generate more patents per worker.

 

Immigrant-funded firms further employ many U.S. workers and contribute greatly to the U.S. economy. A diverse educational environment helps all students, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, to thrive and to develop foundational skills that will allow them to be productive workers that contribute to US Economic growth. Embracing diversity in the classroom means embracing a prosperous future for all Americans.