Proof Points: Study: Latino learning suffers with deportations

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Hello,
Liz Willen here. I am the editor-in-chief of The Hechinger Report. Tomorrow kicks off a three-day national fundraising campaign for nonprofit journalism in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and as a nonprofit newsroom impacted by the pandemic, we are asking for your help. Our ability to continue essential reporting during these challenging times is at risk. Tomorrow kicks off a three-day national fundraising campaign for nonprofit journalism, and we have a request.

If you value the work we're doing in this crisis, will you donate today, in honor of #GivingTuesdayNow?

As Hechinger marks its 10^th anniversary this week, we hope to raise $10,000 by the end of Thursday. Your gift helps us bring you clear, accurate and trusted stories about the future of education, such as those you find in Jill Barshay's weekly Proof Points column. We know you have come to rely on ideas and research that would get little attention or traction otherwise. Jill’s goal is to help readers, including school leaders and classroom teachers, clearly understand the latest education research and statistics.

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- Liz Willen

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By Jill Barshay

Given the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the United States right now, a group of education researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara, was curious to learn if immigration enforcement affects educational outcomes. It’s too soon to study the Trump administration’s raids and policies but the researchers could study a previous era, 2009 to 2016, when former President Barack Obama also stepped up arrests and deportations of undcoumented residents.

The study, “Deportations Near the Schoolyard: Examining Immigration Enforcement and Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Educational Outcomes,” was published in a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, AERA Open, in January 2020.

Read the column

Key Findings

Latino-white gaps in chronic absenteeism and math test scores widened in nearly 2,000 school districts that were located within 25 miles of a deportation.
Schools beyond this 25-mile radius of a deportation site didn’t see the Latino-white gaps in achievement and absenteeism grow along with deportation rates.
Reading scores and bullying rates were not correlated with deportation data.

Teacher Takeaway

Absenteeism may be the driver of the results. Deportations disrupt immigrant communities, including school-going habits. Missed days of school have a bigger and more immediate effect on math than on reading.
“This study is a call for researchers and educators to look further at what they’re seeing in their schools, and the ways it is manifesting,” said author J. Jacob Kirskey. “Ultimately we want to steer resources to the students who need them.”

Lit Review

Kirksey, J. J., Sattin-Bajaj, C., Gottfried, M. A., Freeman, J., & Ozuna, C. S. (2020). Deportations Near the Schoolyard: Examining Immigration Enforcement and Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Educational Outcomes. AERA Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419899074
Ee, J., & Gándara, P. (2020). The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on the Nation’s Schools. American Educational Research Journal, 57(2), 840–871. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219862998
Blitzer, Jonathan, “After an Immigration Raid, a City’s Students Vanish,” The New Yorker, March 23, 2017.