NCIIP: Early Childhood and K-12 Education

Fact Sheets

October 2023

Recent Immigrant Children: A Profile of New Arrivals to U.S. Schools

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

A significant increase in the number of immigrant children in U.S. schools over the last decade has challenged K-12 educators to expand their capacity to serve students with different backgrounds and educational needs. This fact sheet sketches a profile of recently arrived immigrant children, presenting data on top states of residence, national origins, household characteristics, and more.

Policy Briefs

July 2023

ESSER: Moving the Needle on Equitable and Adequate Education Funding for English Learners

4th and 5th grade students working on posters

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

The pandemic and move to remote learning affected students across the United States, and certain groups—including the nation’s 5 million English Learners (ELs)—were hit particularly hard. At the same time, the federal government made unprecedented investments in public K-12 education to counter the pandemic’s adverse impacts. This issue brief explores the ways school districts have invested these funds to support ELs.

Reports

April 2023

Unlocking Opportunities: Supporting English Learners’ Equitable Access to Career and Technical Education

Three students in a digital filmmaking class set up a camera

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

Increasing equitable access to educational opportunities is a major focus for U.S. educators and others. For English Learners, the hands-on courses offered through career and technical education (CTE) programs can play an important role in helping them stay engaged in school, graduate, and get on a path to a career providing a family-sustaining wage. This report explores policies and practices to support their participation in CTE, as well as persistent barriers.

Commentaries

November 2022

Apprenticeship Programs Are a Promising Solution to Bring More Multilingual Workers into Early Childhood Field

Photo of a preschool teacher reading to students.

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

Shortages of workers continue to plague early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems across the United States. With the field already struggling to effectively serve young children in families that speak languages other than English, apprenticeship programs offer a promising solution to bring more—and more multilingual—workers into early childhood careers.

Fact Sheets

October 2022

Dual Language Learners: Key Characteristics and Considerations for Early Childhood Programs

A group of preschoolers listen to a story

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

How many Dual Language Learner (DLL) children live in your state, and what share do they comprise of all children under age 5? What languages are most commonly spoken in their households? Answers to these and other questions that are critical to the design and implementation of early childhood programs that reach all children equitably are presented in a series of state-level data fact sheets.

Policy Briefs

October 2022

Overlooked but Essential: Language Access in Early Childhood Programs

A mother and toddler walking into a school

iStock.com/Fly View Productions

Dual Language Learners (DLLs)—young children with a parent who speaks a language other than English at home—benefit greatly from early childhood programs, but they also enroll at lower rates than their peers. This policy brief looks at federal and state language access policies that aim to make such programs more accessible to DLLs’ families. It also examines persistent gaps in participation and ways to address them.

Featured

English Learners and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes a number of new requirements for the education of English Learners (ELs), including standardized criteria for identifying EL students and inclusion of English proficiency as a measurement of school quality. Resources on this page can help inform decisions such as how quickly schools must improve and how states can intervene with struggling districts.

Featured

ELL Information Center

The English Language Learner (ELL) Information Center provides informative fact sheets, maps, and state-level data resources that chronicle the demography and trends of immigrant families and their children.

Recent Activity

Multimedia November 17, 2016 Including Immigrant and Refugee Families in Two-Generation Programs: Elements of Successful Programs and Challenges Posed by WIOA Implementation	Reports November 2016 Serving Immigrant Families Through Two-Generation Programs: Identifying Family Needs and Responsive Program Approaches By Maki Park, Margie McHugh and Caitlin Katsiaficas
Articles November 11, 2016 Language Diversity and English Proficiency in the United States By Jeanne Batalova and Jie Zong	Reports October 2016 Mental Health Risks and Resilience among Somali and Bhutanese Refugee Parents By B. Heidi Ellis, Erin N. Hulland , Alisa B. Miller, Colleen Barrett Bixby, Barbara Lopes Cardozo and Theresa S. Betancourt
Articles September 8, 2016 Dual Language Learners in Head Start: The Promises and Pitfalls of New Reforms By Keith McNamara	Multimedia August 25, 2016 Closing the Gap? The Role of Funding in Equitable Education for English Learners in the United States
Reports August 2016 Funding an Equitable Education for English Learners in the United States By Julie Sugarman	Multimedia June 23, 2016 Using Supplementary School Funding to Improve the Educational Outcomes of Migrant-Background Students: A Transatlantic Comparison

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Reports October 2012 Patterns and Predictors of School Readiness and Early Childhood Success among Young Children in Black Immigrant Families By Danielle A. Crosby and Angel S. Dunbar	Fact Sheets August 2012 Relief from Deportation: Demographic Profile of the DREAMers Potentially Eligible under the Deferred Action Policy By Jeanne Batalova and Michelle Mittelstadt
Reports April 2012 Changing Demography and Circumstances for Young Black Children in African and Caribbean Immigrant Families By Donald J. Hernandez	Reports March 2012 The Educational Trajectories of English Language Learners in Texas By Stella M. Flores , Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
Reports November 2011 Up for Grabs: The Gains and Prospects of First- and Second-Generation Young Adults By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix	Fact Sheets December 2010 Updated Estimates of the 2010 DREAM Act
Fact Sheets December 2010 Top Languages Spoken by English Language Learners Nationally and by State, 2009 By Jeanne Batalova and Margie McHugh	Reports September 2010 Still an Hourglass? Immigrant Workers in Middle-Skilled Jobs By Randy Capps and Michael Fix

Pages

Video, Audio

December 14, 2012

Young Children of Black Immigrants in America: Changing Flows, Changing Faces

The event discussion, which touched on the intersection of race and immigration, focused on the demographics of Black immigrants (both African and Caribbean) in the United States and their children, their educational success, and the implications of the recently released volume’s findings for research and public policy.

Video, Audio

August 7, 2012

The New Deferred Action Program: Strategies for Success

Join MPI as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas discusses the application process and policies that the agency has announced to implement the administration’s deferred action program.

Video

August 12, 2011

The New Demography of U.S. Schools

In this video, Michael Fix and Margie McHugh discuss the distribution of English Language Learners across the country, their growth in enrollment, and more.

Video

August 12, 2011

English Language Learners and Their Performance in U.S. Public Schools

In this video, Michael Fix and Margie McHugh examine key indicators of ELL students' performance on standardized tests, among other topics.

Recent Activity

Video, Audio, Webinars

November 17, 2016

Including Immigrant and Refugee Families in Two-Generation Programs: Elements of Successful Programs and Challenges Posed by WIOA Implementation

MPI experts discuss their analysis of data on U.S. foreign- and native-born parents with young children, along with their findings from a field study of select two-generation programs that serve immigrant and refugee families. They explore the implications of WIOA and recommendations for successful program and policy design.

Reports

November 2016

Serving Immigrant Families Through Two-Generation Programs: Identifying Family Needs and Responsive Program Approaches

Two-generation programs that weave together early childhood learning with adult-focused programs hold great potential to break cycles of intergenerational poverty for low-income parents with young children. Little research has been done on how these programs succeed with immigrant families. This report studies select programs and offers analysis of the sociodemographic characteristics of U.S. parents with young children.

Articles

November 11, 2016

Language Diversity and English Proficiency in the United States

Although the number of U.S. residents who speak a language other than English has grown in recent decades, the share of those who are Limited English Proficient (LEP) has fallen: 40 percent in 2015, compared to 44 percent in 1980—even as immigration rose rapidly. This article examines growing linguistic diversity in the country and sketches a profile of the LEP population, including size, location, and socioeconomic characteristics.

Reports

October 2016

Mental Health Risks and Resilience among Somali and Bhutanese Refugee Parents

Somali and Bhutanese refugees are two of the largest groups recently resettled in the United States and Canada. This report examines factors that might promote or undermine the mental health and overall well-being of children of these refugees, with regard to factors such as past exposure to trauma, parental mental health, educational attainment, social support, and discrimination.

Articles

September 8, 2016

Dual Language Learners in Head Start: The Promises and Pitfalls of New Reforms

The Head Start program—a model for early childhood education programs nationwide—has served more than 33 million children since its inception half a century ago, many from immigrant families. This article examines the role of Head Start in the education of Dual Language Learners, who now comprise one-third of enrollees, and discusses how recent policy changes may affect this population.

Video, Audio, Webinars

August 25, 2016

Closing the Gap? The Role of Funding in Equitable Education for English Learners in the United States

This webinar explores the key education funding mechanisms in place to support English Learner elementary and secondary students in the United States, public conversations about funding, and efforts to improve the equitable distribution of educational resources.

Reports

August 2016

Funding an Equitable Education for English Learners in the United States

With English Learners (ELs) representing nearly 10 percent of U.S. elementary and secondary students, many school districts are struggling to develop the capacity to meet the needs of children from immigrant and refugee backgrounds. This study provides an overview of supplementary funding mechanisms to improve EL outcomes, examining policies at state and local levels, and making recommendations for improvement.

Video, Audio, Webinars

June 23, 2016

Using Supplementary School Funding to Improve the Educational Outcomes of Migrant-Background Students: A Transatlantic Comparison

Report authors and an ELL professional discuss the mechanics of school funding and the specialized services provided for migrant-background students in the United States, Canada, France, and Germany. Speakers also highlight the choices facing policymakers who seek to use supplementary funding to better support effective, high-quality education for children from immigrant and refugee families.

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