Immigration

Introduction

Immigration portends significant impacts to many facets of life within the United States ranging from classroom and workforce to communities throughout the country. According to available figures the number of immigrants in the United States stood nearly at 41.3 million representing a significant rise in a country that has developed historically through the efforts of immigrants. These figures indicate that the United States represents a popular immigrant destination attracting approximately 20% of the total number total number of international immigrants despite this number only accounting for less than five percentage points of the world’s population (Zong & Batalova, 2015).

During the period under review, immigrants represented 13% of the 316 million population of the United States; factoring U.S-born immigrant children, immigrants are about 80 million or rather a quarter of the entire population meaning that a quarter of the country’s population is either first or else second generation (Zong & Batalova, 2015).

According to Pew Research Center (2016), in excess of a third of the entire population of school children enrolled in K-12 learning will be immigrants or the product of immigrant parents. The challenge is however how schools will rethink their classroom stratagems, family engagement activities as well as how they effectively navigate through cultural divides and deliver better learning outcomes. Given the rising numbers and role immigrants currently play in the progression of the country, schools can indeed play a crucial role in addressing the student need in K-12 learning. This solutions paper will therefore critically analyze immigration as it relates to the United States by focusing on immigrants needs in K-12 learning. The paper will seek to identify the problems immigrants encounter in K-12 learning with a view to proposing pragmatic solutions capable of improving outcomes for these groups.

Immigrant student needs in K-12 Learning

            At present, close to 2 million immigrant students are enrolled in K-12 programs throughout the United States (Pew Research Center, 2016). In addition, over the last two years or so, the United Sates has experienced a rise in the number of unaccompanied children entering the country from the south as in excess of 50,000 children flee persecution in Mexico and other South American nations. Upon arriving in the country, the law requires that they wait for the courts to determine their status while living with sponsors or relatives. However, during the waiting period, minors are legally required to enroll in school. In Plyer v. Doe (1882), the United States Supreme Court determined that all learners irrespective of their status are entitled to K-12 education (Ma & Li, 2016).

As the immigrant community in the United States continues to swell in traditional destinations and at times regions that are historically known as conventional immigrant destinations, instructors as well as school administrators are constantly compounded by different challenges and as such are in dire need of assistance in school enrollments and the best approaches to deal address the learning needs of immigrant students (García, 2015). The most fundamental challenges are discussed below.

Factors that Shape Education achievement in k-12 learning

Research on the K-12 attainment levels among immigrant children indicates that consistency in learning parent education level; prior school experience, parental support, as well as individual difference represent the major factors that shape the realization of education outcomes (Barkan, 2013).

The vast majority of immigrant children in the United States possess an education background underlined by a limited exposure to learning resources as well as books; erratic and disjointed education; and often inadequate parental supporter (Schumm, 2006). In addition, during their formative years many learners’ lives are focused on assisting their respective families with different survival chores with little attention to school readiness.  This indicates that immigrant children are disadvantaged in that they are expected to fulfill education requirements as expected of native English speakers within a rather limited timeframe (Ma & Li, 2016).

Additional stressors students enrolled in K-12 learning face related to respective experiences of leaving their native homelands including but not limited to economic challenges faced by families; undocumented status; cultural shock; instability in addition to growing up between two markedly dissimilar cultural and linguistic assemblages. Moreover immigrant learners often lack the requisite parental backing as a result of the parent’s limited education and proficiencies in English which in turn limits their aptitude to provide the necessary support required by K-12 learners in addition to their ability to get involved in their children’s school life (Barkan, 2013).

Challenges K-12 Learners Encounter in U.S Classrooms

Despite the fact a quarter of school attending children in the United States will be immigrants of second-generation immigrant children, many schools throughout the country are ill-equipped and unprepared to the needs of immigrant learners in K-12 learning argues Schumm, (2006). One of the most critical asset immigrant youths are acquiring from education is the frequent learning of two languages. However this requires skills as well as practice as using multiple forms for classroom communication coupled with auxiliary indigenous language development is not a simple task. Such an approach disadvantages immigrant learners as the demands inherent to standardized testing frequently forces education institutions to focus more on routine learning in regards to English at the expense of the crucial asset afforded by a learner’s native languages in addition to what researchers have learned about how immigrant acquire second language skills (García, 2015).

Related to the development of bilingual skills, immigrant learners in K-12 learning are best aided when learning institutions foster to encourage bicultural identities thereby enabling learners to navigate manifold cultural contexts effectively (Zong & Batalova, 2015). Every child in this century needs to acquire to wade through different cultural boundaries be they racial, ethnic, geographic, age or other demarcations. Immigrant workers must therefore navigate through numerous cultures to achieve better educational outcomes. Many schools as well as districts are yet to develop the requisite strategies required to provide necessary support to this form of cultural straddling presented by K-12.

On the converse, the education system in the country tends to focus largely on the American culture further curtailing the attainment of K-12 by immigrants since the learners are entering a highly racialized society within the United States.  Schools in the United States have not done enough to develop strategies aimed at improving race interactions in addition to attenuating stereotypes as well as the dangers posed by stereotypes to learning outcomes based on the status of immigrants, race and ethnicity (Ma & Li, 2016).

Psychological Impacts of Immigration

The movement from their homelands is typically a challenging event for many children. Separation from acquainted foundations as well setting means that children are leaving relations with peers and family members, in addition to a material and social environment underlined by specific practices and rules behind (Barkan, 2013). As a result, often children experience enrolled in K-12 learning experience varied feelings spanning from excitement, confusion, sadness, anxiety, uncertainty, disorientation, and fear. The associated emotion conditions in regards to immigrant learners are widely disregarded by instructors as well as other school personnel. Educators have thus failed to appreciate the emotional challenges these students encounter after arriving in a new country and during the subsequent adapting process and adjustment to novice expectations and practices thus limiting the ability of K-1 immigrant students to achieve better educational outcomes (Pew Research Center, 2016).

Challenges faced by K-12 Teachers

            K-12 instructors in emerging migrant destinations-regions currently experiencing an unprecedented increase in immigrant populations- find themselves compounded by an array of unforeseen issues (García, 2015). These include but are not limited to distinct socio-economic needs, a broader array of English skills, community conflicts, and the absence of a universal language for engaging parents. Traditional immigrant destinations like New York also face similar challenges as immigration trends change. Initially, many may view this situation as the result of immigrant students introducing additional problems to K-12 classrooms district or school.

This means that teachers view immigrants as liabilities as opposed to assets in that they bring forth wealthy, diverse cultural backgrounds to modern learning in addition to exposing their compatriots to diverse means of comprehending the world as presently constituted. However, there are instances where K-12 teachers and school authorities have been forced to develop appropriate stratagems that leverage manifold communication modes aimed at helping the students shift their focus beyond the country’s culture (Ma & Li, 2016).

While Schumm, (2006) notes that this broad approach is gaining ground in terms of increasing attainment levels among K-12 immigrants, there is a disheartening lack of support from experienced instructors in immigrant children education as well time to rethink and tailor curriculum to the needs of K-12 students in addition to the lack of adequate reflection on different practices in teaching. Teachers are therefore ill-prepared to adequately meet the varying needs of these learners.

Analysis of the Findings

From the examination of different challenges that inhibit the ability of immigrant K-12 learner’s from achieving better educational outcomes it is evident that the immigrant population in the united States is comprised of individuals underlined by varying roots. These differences mean that each immigrant group has different needs in terms of K-12 education. It is therefore important to appreciate additional dynamics before formulating solutions to the problems encountered by immigrant student populations. More importantly, K-12 educators must recognize that from a general perspective, immigrant learners in K-12 programs are accompanied by an array of educational as well as life experiences in addition two to resources upon arriving in the classroom. In addition, based on the precise status of these experiences such as the age they were when they first arrived in the country and the permanence period afforded by the courts, they display varying scales of knowledge of the English Language as well as other cultural settings.

Recommendations/Solutions

Understanding Students Needs in K-12 Learning

K-12 educators can and indeed play a crucial role in helping immigrant learners to adjust to the factors driving the novice school experience. As a rule it is important for teachers to avoid making unjustified assumptions and generalizations. They should instead leverage resources such as bilingual classrooms, incorporating parents and/or interpreters in K-12 learning in order to help learners attain better education levels. The challenges enumerated above indicate that it is important for teachers to address the needs of each learner as unique in regards to:

• Nation as well as are of region and the native language spoken in their respective homelands.
• Precise immigration background of each learner. For instance, it is important to consider the duration the child has stayed in the country? The people he/she lives with? What important experiences or people were left behind?
• Potential stressors immigrant K-12 learners are facing or are likely to face such as work hardships, family conflicts, and financial limitations among others.
• Access to affordable medical services and their impact on K-12 attainment levels.
• Assist the learners to remain connected to their cultural origins.
• Encourage immigrant K-12 learners to express their respective feelings in ways they are already familiar with such as requesting them to express their thoughts through drawings of their previous schools, fa1mniliar stories and objects in the new country.

Improving Teachers’ Ability to deliver quality education to K-12 Learners

Education leaders as a matter of priority increase their commitment to the difficult discourse surrounding the differences as well as changes portended by immigration and as such commit to locating pragmatic means of capturing the opportunities afforded by a dynamic students population in regards to developing adequate strategies aimed at augmenting teaching as well as learning. A cultural or bicultural straddler model is the best approach in this sense as it will allow education leaders to avail the necessary support to instructors and immigrant students. It is however important to be cognizant of the fact that such an approach requires considerable time and commitment if K-12 learning adequately meets the needs of these learners going forward.

Moreover, it important to ensure that their teachers have the requisite cultural competencies to improve K-12 learning outcomes among immigrant workers as this is the only way through which educators can understand the dynamics shaping the inner world of learners. Cultural competency will impart skills in teachers that will in turn help them to connect with the assorted cultural backgrounds, personalities as well as interests. However, it requires the educator to view himself a lifelong learner and as such, he will inexorably encounter novice cultures within a multicultural classroom.

Second Language Acquisition

            In order to address the needs of immigrant students in K-12 learning, it is imperative for educators to have accurate expectations of these learners in regards to the development of English language skills. More importantly,  teachers and school administrators to understand that acquiring second language skills follows a similar approach as first language and as such seek to develop learning tools based on this.

Conclusion

These solutions paper has identified challenges encountered by immigrant learners in K-12 learning upon which it has proposed pragmatic solutions capable of improving outcomes for these groups. The recommended approaches are important given the fact that more than a third of the entire population of school children enrolled in K-12 learning will be immigrants or the product of immigrant parents. The challenge to improving K-12 learning nonetheless remains how schools will rethink their classroom stratagems, family engagement activities as well as how they effectively navigate through cultural divides and deliver better learning outcomes. Given the rising numbers and role immigrants currently play in the progression of the country, schools can indeed play a crucial role in addressing student needs in K-12 learning and producing individuals with the right set of skills in a multicultural world.

References

Barkan, E. R. (2013). Immigrants in American History: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration. Los Angeles California: ABC-CLIO.

García, E. E. (2015). Teaching and Learning in Two Languages: Bilingualism & Schooling in the United States. Teachers College Press.

Ma, W., & Li, G. (2016). Chinese-Heritage Students in North American Schools: Understanding Hearts and Minds beyond Test Scores. New York, NY: Routledge.

Pew Research Center. (2016). Hispanic Trends. Retrieved March 22, 2016, from 2016: http://www.pewhispanic.org/search/?query=undocumented immigrants

Schumm, J. S. (2006). Reading Assessment and Instruction for All Learners. Guilford Press.

Zong, J., & Batalova, J. (2015, February 26). Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States. Retrieved March 22nd, 2016, from Migration Policy Institute.