Educational Outcomes of High School Newcomers: Evidence from Massachusetts

• In Event: Contexts, Policies, and Outcomes for English Learners

Abstract

Newcomers, or students who recently arrived in the U.S. and are not fluent in English, are an important but understudied subgroup. Newcomers bring a wealth of knowledge and cultural assets to the classroom. However, they face greater challenges in adapting to and succeeding in U.S. schools than their non-newcomer peers who are classified as English Learners (Callahan and Gandara, 2014; Umansky and Porter, 2020). For example, many newcomers are overage for their grade, have limited or interrupted prior education, and arrive with quite low levels of English proficiency (Potochnick, 2018; Umansky et al., 2018, 2022). Understanding their characteristics and academic trajectories is essential in designing effective policies, as well as instructional and socioemotional supports.

In this paper, we leverage longitudinal data from Massachusetts along with interviews with district- and school-based educators to document the academic progress of immigrant newcomers in public high schools from 2008 to 2024. Our focus in high school newcomers is crucial, as high school is a critical juncture where newcomers must simultaneously develop English language proficiency, master complex academic content, and fulfill graduation requirements, within a limited timeline.
We answer three research questions: 1) Who are newcomers in Massachusetts public high schools, how are they distributed, and how has this changed over time? 2) What are newcomers’ academic outcomes (e.g., attendance, English proficiency, and high school graduation)? 3) How do academic outcomes differ across newcomer groups or school districts?

These questions advance the emerging literature on newcomers’ educational experiences in three ways. First, high-school newcomers have received little attention in previous work. The few extant studies have focused on high schools specifically designed for newcomers (Hersi & Watkinson, 2012; Chu & Fong, 2015) or examined the impact of individual newcomer programs on academic achievement (Johnson, 2020; Morales & Mogollon, 2024). Second, we explore a broader set of academic outcomes, including attendance and high school graduation, than prior work (e.g., Umansky et al., 2022). Third, instead of treating newcomers as a single group, we use detailed administrative data to examine heterogeneity in newcomer outcomes across country of origin, home language, gender, and initial English proficiency.

We follow several cohorts of newcomers longitudinally to examine which school districts they attend and how the characteristics of these cohorts, including gender, initial English proficiency, age, and country of origin, have changed over time. We then model newcomers’ educational outcomes as a function of these characteristics, examining how outcomes vary across them. We draw on interviews to illuminate our findings.

We find that the number of newcomers has grown substantially statewide and within districts, including districts without prior experience serving immigrant youth. Furthermore, the composition of newcomers has changed rapidly, with recent arrivals having lower levels of initial English language proficiency. Finally, newcomers’ average outcomes are notably low, with great heterogeneity by gender, initial English proficiency and country of origin. For example, female newcomers are 7 percentage points more like to graduate than males. These findings underscore the need to develop targeted supports for this growing population with increasingly diverse needs.

Authors

• Diana Carolina Quintero Castellanos, Brown University
  Presenting Author

• John P Papay, Brown University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Richard J. Murnane, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Preeya Mbekeani, American Institutes for Research
  Non-Presenting Co-Author