Young Children of Immigrants and the Path to Educational Success: Key Themes from an Urban Institute Roundtable

Young Children of Immigrants and the Path to Educational Success: Key Themes from an Urban Institute Roundtable Olivia Golden and Karina Fortuny About the Urban Institute Roundtable on Young Children in Immigrant Families The goal of Young Children in Immigrant Families and the Path to Educational Success, a 2010 roundtable funded by the Foundation for Child Development and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, was to connect state and federal policy debates about early childhood education and education reform with emerging research about young children in immigrant families and what they and their families need to support their success at school. Specialists in education and early education—including researchers, key federal and state policy experts, and policymakers—came together for a day-long session with four closely related goals: to inform education and early education policymakers of the growing body of research about young children of immigrants; to educate researchers about policymakers’ needs; to build relationships between the two groups; and to generate specific, useful insights about the intersection of policy and research in this field. The authors would like to thank Serena Lei for her extraordinary writing and editorial contributions; the Roundtable participants for their commitment and the rich and honest discussion; Ajay Chaudry of the Urban Institute, and co-principal investigator of the project, for his leadership in planning the roundtable and facilitating a portion of the discussion; Irene Lee of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Ruby Takanishi of the Foundation for Child Development for their extremely useful input into all stages of the roundtable as well as their review of this report; and the Foundation for Child Development and the Annie E. Casey Foundation for their generous support of this project. Copyright © October 2010. The Urban Institute. Permission is granted for reproduction of this file, with attribution to the Urban Institute. The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization that examines the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nation. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Contents Setting the Context 1 High-Quality Early Childhood and Elementary Education 4 Access to Early Childhood Education 4 Quality in Early Childhood Education 5 Quality in Elementary Education 5 School Reform 6 Parent-Focused Strategies 8 Policy Opportunities 9 Next Steps in Research 9 Notes 11 Roundtable Participants 12 References 14 Young Children of Immigrants and the Path to Educational Success The population of young children of immigrants grew tremendously over the past two decades, doubling between 1990 and 2008. The growing presence of young children of immigrants is changing the demographic makeup of our classrooms, yet major debates about early education and school reform in the United States far too often do not mention them. As a result, even as high-quality education for all becomes a prominent policy and political goal, key questions remain unanswered about whether schools and early childhood programs are doing a good job teaching these young children. Do they know how to make the most of children’s crucial years of language development, roughly age 3 to 8, especially for English language learners? Do schools and early childhood programs know how to engage parents and build on family strengths? Do children and their families have access to good programs that might help them succeed? Talking about the education of children of immigrants can be difficult, sparking heated—at times, divisive—debates over immigration policy, national identity, government investment, and federal, state, and local roles in crafting early education and K–12 policies and practices. But the risk of failing to ask and answer these questions is that government policies, funding choices, and program approaches may hinder rather than support the success of this large and growing group of young students, jeopardizing their long-run success. The Urban Institute’s June 2010 roundtable “Young Children of Immigrants and the Path to Educational Success” sought to address these gaps by focusing attention on the specific needs of these young children and their families. The event, sponsored by the Foundation for Child Development and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, brought together a wide range of federal and state policymakers, practitioners, and experts on child development, early education, K–12 education, and immigration research. This paper summarizes their discussion. Setting the Context The roundtable began with an overview of immigration trends. Karina Fortuny of the Urban Institute highlighted that young children of immigrants accounted for the entire growth in the population of children age 0 to 8 in the United States between 1990 and 2008. Without them, the nu