"It’s the Olympics of Teaching:” Supporting and Retaining Teachers of Immigrant Newcomer Youth

• In Event: Beyond Dreaming: Realizing the Promise of Educational Equity for Immigrant Youth

Abstract

Objectives
Research on the school trajectories of newcomer immigrant youth K-12 has explored a range of school-level factors including those that create barriers and others that support overall success of newcomer ELs. It is well known that newcomer youth are often disconnected from the college access pipeline, but limited research has tested policy interventions aiming to dismantle barriers to newcomers’ postsecondary access and completion. This mixed methods study leverages postsecondary access and completion data of a small set of high schools in a network that has demonstrated success at graduating newcomer EL youth at rates far beyond district and state averages. to create a nuanced understanding of policies and practices that serve as gatekeepers and facilitators to postsecondary access for new immigrant youth.

Perspectives
Persistent structural and systemic barriers have made postsecondary access for immigrant youth a challenge (Callahan, 2005; Gándara & Rumberger, 2009; Ruiz de Velasco et al, 2000). Their poor academic outcomes in traditional high schools reflect linguistic marginalization (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Ruiz-de-Velasco, et al., 2000) and persistent xenophobia forces them to navigate often hostile schools and community environments (Gandara & Ee, Metzner et al., 2022; Villavicencio et al., 2021). The intersection of race, gender and immigration status results in a hierarchy of access that disadvantages in particular undocumented youth (Covarrubias & Lara, 2014) vis-a-vis access to postsecondary education. Research has documented significant gaps in postsecondary access and achievement of immigrant youth in U.S. postsecondary institutions (Batalova & Feldblum, 2000; Manspile, Atwell & Bridgeland, 2021). To date limited research explores how school-level factors K-12 can serve to address barriers to postsecondary access for students who are linguistically marginalized and often unfamiliar with the postsecondary system.

Methods
This study uses mixed methods to explore postsecondary pathways of graduates of small public high schools with documented success in serving newcomers. Empirical analysis of college application, enrollment, and completion data are combined with findings from teacher and student interviews.


Preliminary Findings
Graduates of Internationals Network schools relied on postsecondary access structures built into the school schedule as key to facilitating access to the application and enrollment process. Data revealed postsecondary application, enrollment, retention and completion rates beyond those of schools with comparable peer populations. Despite students’ overwhelming success in accessing college, their EL and former EL status disadvantaged them from a policy perspective, often recreating systematic linguistic marginalization that their innovative secondary schools had dismantled.

Significance
The study addresses gaps in research on the postsecondary access pathways of growing numbers of immigrant youth who attend and complete U.S. high schools and in research on the transition between high school and college for immigrant youth. This research contributes to international scholarship on school development for refugee and immigrant populations. By exploring effective secondary schools from the perspectives of immigrant youth, the educators who serve them and examining achievement metrics, the study provides new insights into what factors at the school-level can dismantle systemic barriers. Additionally, this research contributes to existing literature on addressing inequalities in schooling and on innovations in school communities serving newcomer youth.

Author

• Marguerite Lukes, Internationals Network for Public Schools