New Research Finds Recently Arrived English Learners Have a Positive Effect of Peers’ Outcomes

In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, immigrants are once again at the forefront of political scapegoating. Anti-minority rhetoric often comes about in times of crisis and fosters an illusion that immigrants are a drain on local communities and schools. Unfortunately this tactic is not new, and children are often swooped up in this harmful narrative. At present, recently arrived immigrant students, often referred to as newcomers, have been thrown into the spotlight as news coverage continues to express that local communities are being “overrun” and overwhelmed by foreigners.

In an education context, claims are often made about immigrant students’ poor educational outcomes and their disproportionate use of school resources. And while previous research has found these claims to be untrue, the ever-evolving nature of immigration presents continual opportunities to evaluate this issue. For example, the southeast has been the fastest growing region for English learners (ELs) over the last 20 years in the U.S. States in this region such as South Carolina and Mississippi are not considered “traditional destinations” yet they saw EL increases of 236 percent and 131 percent, respectively, between 2004 and 2014. Delaware is one of these “new destination” states and researchers recently evaluated the impact newcomer EL students were having on their host schools.

In their article, “Educational Spillover Effects of New English Learners in a New Destination State” researchers Sy Doan, Sam Morales, Umut Özek, and Heather Schwartz sought to understand the effect that recently arrived English learners had on the academic outcomes of existing students. They chose to focus on Delaware because the state ranks fourth nationally in the percentage increase of its immigrant population and its English learner population has increased seven-fold over the past 20 years.

The researchers looked at a variety of student-level data, but the primary academic measure they used was students’ English Language Arts (ELA) and math scores on Delaware’s Smarter Balanced assessment (SBAC), the state’s end-of-year summative assessment that is given to all students in grades 3–8.

Similar to previous work, their research found that recently arrived ELs students did not have a detrimental effect on their peers. In fact, the data actually showed that new EL students had a positive spillover effect on their peers in their first year of enrollment. Specifically they found that students in receiving schools saw their test scores improve as new EL students arrived, not decrease, especially in reading but also in math. Students most likely to benefit academically from new English learners were other currently identified ELs as well as former English learners. However, the data also showed that newly arrived ELs had moderate positive effects on the outcomes of students who were never classified as English learners as well. As the authors note, these findings “contradict a narrative that EL students lower student performance overall.”

Interestingly, the researchers also found that new students who were not English learners did not have a similar positive impact on their peers’ test scores. And while it is difficult to pin-point the reason behind the effects new ELs had on their peers, the authors offer several potential explanations. First, it may be possible that new EL students trigger increased funding for a school both through general per-pupil calculations as well as EL-specific funding streams such as Title III. According to the authors, “increased funding could be particularly beneficial for the existing EL students if these additional resources are directed to EL instruction.” Second, having more EL students enrolled in a particular school may inspire teachers to develop and hone their EL instructional strategies and increase the school’s ability to provide language services at scale. And third, the education motivation that recently arrived immigrant students are known to carry may be brushing off onto EL students in receiving schools. And relatedly, their mere presence in higher numbers could reduce the social isolation of existing EL students.

As the authors noted, new ELs may have increased educational needs initially, but this does not mean forever. Their findings add to a body of work that dispel the myth that large numbers of recently arrived immigrant students negatively affect host schools and communities. And although this study is specific to a certain geographic location at a particular point in time, it adds to the empirical base that is helping to dismantle a harmful narrative that seems to be surrounding immigrants more broadly.