by James A. Bacon
Americans are rightly concerned about the impact of the flood of foreigners entering the country illegally through a broken border — not just the fiscal burden of increased outlays for healthcare, schools, and social services but the longer-term risk of creating an unassimilable mass in the body politic. Such fears gain traction when we observe cultural elites trying to radicalize “people of color” by portraying them as victims of systemic racism. Every racial disparity in the metrics of wellbeing is said to be evidence of oppression — as if immigrants from Third World villages should feel entitled to the same income level as native-born Americans who have been lifted up over generations.
One of the disparities that critics of American society see as unjust is the racial/ethnic gap in educational outcomes. English Learners score much lower on their Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores than English-fluent students. The learning gap is often said to be proof of bias.
A close examination of the testing data, however, shows quite the opposite. It shows remarkable upward mobility for immigrants, at least in terms of academic achievement.
We cannot tell from Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) data how many immigrant children there are in public schools. But we have a decent proxy. VDOE tracks the number of “English Learners.” By VDOE’s count, there were about 130,000 in the 2022-23 school year. Not surprisingly given the difficulty in understanding their teachers, they passed their Reading, Writing, and Math SOLs at rates that were half to one-third of their English-fluent peers.
A static view of these numbers would appear to confirm that immigrant children are terribly served in Virginia schools. But society is dynamic, not static. Over time, many if not most English Learner students become what VDOE classifies as “ex-English Learners.”
Children are language sponges. The longer immigrant kids live in the United States, the more likely they are to be exposed to English — on TV, at school, around the neighborhood — even if they speak Spanish, Korean, or Arabic at home.
Here’s the good news: when immigrant students become fluent in English, they pass their SOL exams at roughly the same rate as native-born Americans. Remarkably, according to the VDOE data, ex-English Learners passed English Reading exams at a higher rate than native speakers in 2022-23 (see the table above). Likewise, they passed their math SOL tests at a higher rate. They did fall short in English writing, however.
Admittedly, immigrants are not a monolithic group. We see different patterns for Asian, Black, Hispanic and White immigrants (and likely would see different patterns within those groups, but VDOE does not collect that data).
Once Asian and Black students become fluent enough in English to be classified as “ex-English Learners,” they outperform their native-born racial/ethnic counterparts in SOL reading exams. It is well known that Asian students in Virginia pass their SOL exams at a higher rate than other racial/ethnic groups. Remarkably, ex-English Learners of Asian origin pass English exams at a higher rate (92%) than all Asians (87%) and all Virginians (73%).
Interestingly, although non-Hispanic Black immigrants (primarily from African and French-speaking Caribbean countries) fare extremely poorly as English Learners — only 21% pass their Reading exams — they make up ground rapidly once they become fluent in English: 68.1% pass the exams, exceeding the pass rate of native-born Blacks by nearly nine percentage points.
We see different patterns for Hispanics and Whites. Hispanic English Learners pass reading at the lowest rate of any racial/ethnic group — only 12.5%. They fare much better when they achieve fluency (57% pass rate), but they fall a little short of Hispanic students as a whole (59%).
White English Learners are a special case. We typically think of “White” immigrants as coming from Europe, but European immigrants to Virginia are modest in number. Most “White” English Learners, I believe, originate from Middle Eastern and North African countries, and are deemed “White” by the U.S. racial classification system. Indeed, many are lobbying for a distinct racial identity.
Be that as it may, “White” English Learners pass SOL English exams at a rate only slightly higher than Hispanics and actually lower than Asians and Blacks. Like all other groups, however, their performance improves dramatically by the time they are reclassified as “ex-English Learners.” At 69%, their pass rate is comparable to that of Black ex-learners.
These conclusions are preliminary. I have not taken into account the considerable diversity within racial/ethnic groups, Asians especially. I could dig deeper by comparing pass rates for all subject areas, not just reading. I could adjust for socioeconomic status (economically disadvantaged versus not disadvantaged). I could examine trends over time. Sadly, I am not writing a PhD dissertation, so I don’t have the luxury of delving into that detail.
But I do feel comfortable drawing a general conclusion: immigrant children perform better at school the longer they live in the United States, and the more fluency they gain in English. Immigrant children make tremendous academic gains once they become English-conversant, and better academic performance opens up better job opportunities.
Despite the fears of many on the political right that American culture is being overwhelmed, and notwithstanding the best efforts of political progressives to make immigrants view themselves as persecuted and alienated, most immigrants are assimilating. Those who steer clear of woke higher-ed institutions where they learn to hate America manage to make pretty good lives for themselves.
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