The Nativity Achievement Gap and Immigrant Families' School Choice Disadvantage: Evidence From Los Angeles County

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Centering Marginalized Students and Families in School Choice Research (Table 24)

Abstract

Immigrants’ children constitute a large, growing share of American youth, yet consensus on nativity-based achievement gaps’ sources remains elusive. In this study, I implicate nativity-based disparities in school quality, exacerbated by choice-oriented enrollment systems, as a potential driver. Concretely, I propose that immigrant families are less likely to access highly-coveted– and potentially high-quality– schools of choice (e.g., magnets, charters, privates) than are non-immigrant families, given the importance of human, social, cultural, and linguistic capital in navigating contemporary school enrollment systems. Logistic regressions using L.A.FANS data on ~2,000 children linked to administrative sources support this account: immigrants’ children are 15 percentage points less likely to attend schools of choice. This gap appears largely driven by Latino immigrant parents lacking English fluency.

Author

• Jared Nathan Schachner, University of Southern California