New Research: Immigrant Students Boost English Learners’ Academic Performance

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While politicians continue to cast immigrants as a threat to local communities with rhetoric so hateful it’s shut down schools, RAND researchers note a positive development following the arrival of young newcomers: They boost other students’ academic performance.

A Delaware-based study found that a substantive increase in young immigrants leads to sizable academic gains for students who were already in English learner programs or who had graduated from them. 

And at a time when immigrant students are portrayed as a drain on U.S. schools, researchers also found that those who had never been enrolled in English learner programs were not significantly impacted. Their performance improved, but by a negligible amount. 

Researchers analyzed student-level administrative data from Delaware covering 125,500 fourth through eighth graders enrolled in public schools between the 2015–16 and 2018–19 school years. They note the timeliness of the study, which was published last month in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

President-elect Donald Trump, who won decisively in his re-election bid against Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday, regularly lambasted immigrants in dehumanizing, racist terms throughout his campaign and promised mass deportation of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal immigration status.

“What are the effects of immigrants on communities?” asked David Figlio, professor of economics and education at the University of Rochester, in a recent interview with The 74. “Especially those that are ‘new immigrant destinations’ that have not historically had large numbers of foreign-born residents? This paper directly addresses one of the most important potential mechanisms through which immigrant students might affect incumbent students — the consequences of increased linguistic diversity in the classroom.”

Delaware’s share of immigrants increased by 65% between 2000 and 2010 — and by 53% between 2010 and 2019, according to the study. Likewise, the number of English learner students in Delaware public schools increased seven-fold over the past two decades. 

Researchers say the share of English learners in the public school system soared from 2% in 2000 to 11% in 2019: The increase accounted for about half of the overall enrollment growth in Delaware public schools in that timeframe.

Umut Ozek, a senior economist at RAND, said a sudden increase in newcomer students can test schools: their needs might call for added social and academic support. 

But, he said, these findings should assuage concerns by state and federal policy makers that large upticks of newcomer students are overwhelming school districts and degrading classroom achievement, saying such conversations must be rooted in fact. 

“We don’t want these debates to take place in vacuums,” he said. 

Conservative forces have long considered an attack on Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 Supreme Court decision that prohibits schools from turning away students based upon their immigration status. 

Politicians in several states are already targeting these students. Oklahoma schools Superintendent Ryan Walters demanded — in an Oct. 29 letter addressed to Vice President Harris — a nearly $475 million reimbursement for what he claims is the cost of educating “illegal immigrant children.”

“Under your supervision, the costs in education due to illegal immigration have risen astronomically,” he wrote. “Your failed oversight and efforts are a direct cause of the current crises Oklahoma and other states now face. Oklahoma taxpayers, schools, teachers, and parents should not bear the burden of your failings.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said two years ago that Plyler should be revisited: A Tennessee politician introduced legislation that would bar undocumented students from public school. A state representative in Utah made similar remarks earlier this year. 

RAND researchers are not entirely sure why current and former English learners benefit from the arrival of newcomer students but cite three possible explanations: First, they say, immigrant students often trigger increased funding for schools, money that could be particularly helpful to existing English learners. 

For example, if the English learner population reaches a particular threshold, schools might hire additional staff to support these students. Second, a marked uptick of newcomers in the classroom might prompt teachers to use more effective strategies to serve this population, a change they might not have made if their numbers remained small. 

Finally, researchers say, English learners in receiving schools tend to be more academically motivated and can also help their peers feel less isolated. 

This is just one of a handful of studies these researchers have conducted in this area. 

Another, centered on Florida and published in April 2023, found that the presence of immigrant students has a positive effect on the academic achievement of U.S.-born students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

An earlier study in 2018 focused on the impact of Haitian newcomers on existing students in Florida: Researchers found ​​no evidence of negative effects on incumbent students’ school outcomes after the young immigrants arrived. 

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