Increasing accountability for the education of migrant children

Abstract

As the number of school-aged children living outside their country of birth continues to rise, domestic governments should examine whether their education systems have the appropriate policies and practices in place to provide equitable accountability for migrant students. Specifically, domestic governments should work to ensure immigrant students who are not yet proficient in the host country's language are being systematically identified and provided the language supports necessary to engage in their education. Over the past two decades, the US has been able to hone its approach to educating immigrant children. Drawing from this experience, this brief will show how the federal government has used education policy to increase access and accountability for immigrant children enrolled in US schools. Specifically, this brief will highlight the policies the US has adopted to facilitate uniform and objective procedures in how schools: identify immigrant students with linguistic needs upon enrollment; assess their language skills upon enrollment to create a baseline; and systemically and continually support and assess immigrant students' linguistic needs to ensure they can engage with age-appropriate academic content. By highlighting these practices and policies, this brief will show key steps other domestic governments can take to increase the visibility of and accountability over the education of migrant children by ensuring their linguistic needs are proactively addressed.