What Educators Need to Know about Serving Skilled Immigrants, IMPRINT, Webinar, December 11, 2012,
3:00 - 4:00 pm

After the Election: Policies Affecting Young Children of Immigrants, Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC, January 17, 2013 (Registration Link not yet posted)

 

 The schools are a major arena for the vital work of immigrant integration. When the children of immigrants succeed in school, they bring great satisfaction to their parents - often justifying years of toil and sacrifice on their part - and raise the productivity and prosperity level of the entire society. As with all children -- immigrant and native-born alike -- parental involvement in the educational process is a strong predictor of student achievement. Parental engagement, however, presents a special challenge for schools with large numbers of immigrants, as barriers of language and culture often limit parental participation in the educational process. Throughout the United States, far-sighted teachers and administrators are working to break down these barriers, to involve immigrant parents in their children's education, and to build strong home-school partnerships.

 Family engagement models are quite varied. In 2010, the National Education Association, in partnership with the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund (MALDEF), produced a joint report on best practices for increasing the active involvement of minority parents in their children's schools.

In 2009, the Center for Health and Healthcare in the Schools at George Washington University published a report summarizing the 15 "Caring Across Communities" projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These projects were designed to address the emotional and behavioral health care needs of immigrant and refugee students through innovative school-community partnerships and strong parent participation.

 

Another approach to family engagement is through "family literacy" programs, in which parents attend adult education classes in their children's schools, modeling a commitment to education that sets a positive example for their children. Since 1991, for example, the Toyota Corporation, working in partnership with the National Center for Family Literacy, has created 211 family literacy sites for Latino families in 38 cities and 26 states.

The New York Immigration Coalition operates one of the more innovative family engagement projects. One school with a large immigrant population in each of the five boroughs of New York City partners with a community-based organization serving immigrants in that borough. The Coalition plays a coordinating role by -- among other things -- arranging for the Mexican Consulate to provide same-day ID services in the five schools and by pressing the Department of Education and the NYC Police Department to accept these IDs as proper identification for parents wanting to visit the schools.

Research on effective practices in the field of family engagement is ongoing. The Harvard Family Research Project, for example,  produces research supporting the concept of "complementary learning," or the notion that a "systematic approach -- which intentionally integrates both school and nonschool supports -- can better ensure that all children have the skills they need to succeed."