Education Week - March 16, 2016 - 18

COMMENTARY

Keeping Schoolhouse Doors Open for
Immigrant Children

By Eric T. Schneiderman

Eric Gay/AP-File

he New York State Constitution requires a good education for all children.
Unfortunately, the promise of equal access to education is being broken for
many immigrant children
living in New York as some
of our school bureaucracies fail to provide
them with the same education as children
born in the United States.
In 2014, many of the thousands of unaccompanied minors who had arrived from
Central and South America were settling
with their extended families (or being resettled by the federal government) throughout New York state. My office soon began receiving reports that some of these children
were encountering unprecedented barriers
to enrolling in and attending their local
schools.
So, for the past two years, we have been
investigating dozens of school districts
across New York for potentially discriminating against immigrant children by denying
them equal access to an elementary and secondary education.
We have found that many districts have
been stopping immigrant children from entering school or shunting them off to non-degreebearing programs-despite the fact that state
law grants everyone under the age of 21 the
right to attend public school, regardless of immigration status or national origin. Many of
these non-degree programs do not even offer
students an opportunity to obtain a GED credential, let alone a high school diploma.
Some districts were actively trying to prevent them from becoming part of the school
community. For example, enrollment for
these children was often unreasonably and
repeatedly delayed, in direct contradiction of
state regulations.
Discrimination against immigrant students is unacceptable and, under the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision in Plyler v. Doe,
unconstitutional. Thankfully, since our investigation began, we have made significant
progress in breaking down these barriers

Undocumented Central
American immigrants
board a bus after being
released from a family
detention center in San
Antonio last summer.
This year, the federal
government launched
a program to provide
immigrant families in a
few major cities,
including New York,
with opportunities to
retain lawyers and
facilitate schooling for
their children.

Providing all children
with a quality education
is the foundation of the
American dream."
and getting thousands of students off the
streets and into the classroom.
One year ago, my office reached a settlement with 20 school districts throughout
the state to ensure they stopped asking
about students' citizenship and immigration status in their enrollment materials,
which can frighten immigrant children into
abandoning their efforts to get admitted.
In March 2015, we secured a settlement
with the 7,500-student Hempstead Union
Free School District, which had been delaying the enrollment of these students
through a variety of methods, including
overly restrictive policies on proof of im-

munization, age, and residency-in violation of applicable laws and regulations-as
well as regularly telling students or their
guardians that there was simply no room
at district schools for them. As part of the
settlement, the district agreed to retain an
ombudsman to provide new internal oversight over its enrollment policies.
So far, the results are encouraging. By the
start of this school year, Hempstead had
provided additional tutoring or extracurricular help to all the affected students who
asked for such help. The district also hired a
full-time monitor to oversee the enrollment
process and trained every staff member involved in the enrollment process on proper
procedures and rules.
In late February, my office announced
a similar settlement with the Westbury
Union Free School District in Nassau
County to prevent the diversion of immigrant students into non-degree-bearing alternative education programs.
Our efforts have been assisted by our partners in the state government. In December
2014, the state's education board issued new
regulations that gave school districts more

clarity and uniformity in how they must enroll
and process students. Before the board issued
these emergency regulations, many districts
were putting unnecessary roadblocks-including strict requirements for guardianship and
residency documentation-in the way of immigrant students who wanted to register.
But we still have more work to do. My office continues to pursue our lawsuit against
the 10,000-student Utica City School District for engaging in practices similar to
those we found in Westbury. And we will
continue to take action against other districts engaging in these unlawful practices.
School districts cannot place arbitrary
impediments and barriers in the way of immigrants and refugees who are struggling
to achieve a better life for themselves and
their families. Providing all children with
a quality education is the foundation of the
American dream. Every child taken off the
streets and placed into a classroom raises up
the whole community and makes our state
stronger and more just. n
ERIC T. SCHNEIDERMAN is the attorney general of
New York state.

For Disadvantaged Students, New SAT Is First Step

iStockphoto

By Garrett Neiman
fter two years of waiting,
the highly anticipated
new SAT is finally here.
Students around the
United States began taking the exam this month,
kicking off a new era in
college-admissions testing that presents a major opportunity to level
the playing field for high-need students.
The millions of students in America's
public schools who are members of minorities, first- or second-generation immigrants,
English-language learners, first-generation

18 | EDUCATION WEEK | March 16, 2016 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary

college-entrants, and from low-income families face an uphill battle. As the co-founder
and CEO of CollegeSpring, a national nonprofit that offers SAT preparation and nearpeer mentoring for thousands of low-income
students, I see these challenges firsthand
every day. When CollegeSpring students took
baseline diagnostic exams for the old SAT, for
example, they scored in the 12th percentile,
on average. While schools sometimes blame
this disparity on the SAT itself, the reality
is that differences in academic preparation
drive the divide.
When CollegeSpring students, along with
thousands of other students, take the new
SAT for the first time this month, they will

experience an exam that is more straightforward and accessible. The new test's content better reflects skills that students learn
in school and need to be successful in college
and the workplace. Obscure vocabulary has
been removed; topics that are closely connected to success in college, such as algebra, have been emphasized; and the essay's
rhetorical-analysis focus is more germane
PAGE 21 >

GARRETT NEIMAN is the co-founder and CEO of
CollegeSpring, a nonprofit organization that offers
SAT preparation and near-peer mentoring to lowincome students in Greater Los Angeles, New York
City, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Education Week - March 16, 2016

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