Where All Students Are New

N.Y. High School Is for Immigrants Only

New York—Every day, in the musty classroom where she teaches high school students history, Emma Wang waves a pencil like a symphony maestro and calls for quiet. “Silencio!” she shouts to start her lesson. That much she is sure they understand.

If only the rest were so easy. But here at Newcomer High, a public school exclusively for new immigrants who do not speak English well, nothing else really is.

Just the other day, as Wang tried to make a point about the Middle Ages to two boys from Mexico and India, a girl from Poland flung a pen across an aisle to a boy from Argentina that sailed over the heads of a girl from South Korea and a boy from Pakistan. The whole class burst into chatter — in at least six different languages.

“Sometimes,” Wang said later as the teenagers stampeded off to lunch, “I wonder if there are other such classes in all of New York.”

Not many. Nor are there many other high schools like it in the nation. The school, which opened in fall, is the latest attempt by educators here to address one of the most urgent and complex problems confronting public schools in the nation’s large cities: The great wave of young immigrants piling into their classrooms.

A decade ago, there were about 1.5 million children and teenagers in schools who spoke limited English. Today, that number exceeds 3 million and is soaring, especially here in New York, and in states such as California, Texas and Florida. The surge is placing extraordinary new demands on schools and raising new questions about whether traditional methods of educating those students will work.

A central issue is whether immigrant students should be immersed right away in English language classes or learn first in programs that put some emphasis on their native language and culture. That choice has mired bilingual education in controversy, but newcomer schools are even more provocative because the students’ whole academic experience — from classes to student council — takes place apart from American students.

Debate over this approach flares occasionally in the Washington area, where the influx of immigrants is transforming many schools. Fairfax and Montgomery counties now have 16,000 students learning English as as second language after a rapid influx of foreign-born students over the past decade. And there are many small examples of schools dealing with immigrants separately in order to take account of their special needs. Glasgow Middle School in Fairfax County held a special back-to-school night for immigrant parents this fall, and schools all over the Washington area have hired secretaries and other administrative staff who speak Arabic, Spanish, Urdu or other languages that allow them to communicate better with the parents of immigrant children.

Most young immigrants are still taught in regular public schools with student bodies mostly made up of American-born children, but interest in experiments like Newcomer High is growing nationally. The District has one school, Bell Multicultural, that primarily serves immigrants but does not exclude other students. There are several immigrant-only schools in California and other states are examining the idea.

It is quite controversial. Newcomer High, in the borough of Queens, is founded on the notion that immigrants stand a better chance of learning to speak English and melding into American society if they are sent first to classroom settings that only serve their needs.

Newcomer’s students are expected to enroll there for a year or longer; other similar programs in California and elsewhere enroll new immigrants for six months to a year. Many educators fear that too many young immigrants are easily overwhelmed or marginalized in large, traditional high schools. The high schools near Newcomer High here in New York are each packed with several thousand students. Newcomer expects to have fewer than 1,000 — small by city standards.

“For some immigrants, the programs in other schools are a perfect model,” said Newcomer Principal Lourdes Burrows, who immigrated to the United States from Cuba three decades ago. “But for many, it is a terrible struggle. They are intimidated and confused in the new culture. Who knows how many Einsteins we have lost?”

But critics question whether a school such as Newcomer High segregates and stigmatizes immigrants — and may even violate federal civil rights law. Critics of the school say that if its purpose is to help bring immigrant students into the mainstream, why not begin that process right away by improving services for them at high schools with American students? The New York Civil Rights Coalition filed a complaint against Newcomer High recently with the U.S. Department of Education. Officials there are investigating.

“They are blatantly basing admission to the school strictly on national origin,” said Michael Myers, the coalition’s executive director. “I understand all the paternalistic reasons they have, but it still fortifies segregation.”

Advocates for immigrants worry about the school for the same reason. But they say it still may be a good idea because of the array of problems young immigrants face.

“We’re pretty torn over it,” said Margie McHugh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, which represents more than 80 community groups. “We don’t want this kind of program to become a dumping ground for immigrants, or to shield them too long from mainstream society. But we know other schools can be a very frightening experience for them, and we know the staff here really wants to help these kids.”

Newcomer High has opened at a time when many other local governments are scaling back their services to immigrants. The school system here, facing overcrowded classrooms and a growing immigrant population, is instead investing $ 400,000 in the experiment.

At last count, Newcomer High had about 400 students. They are from more than 40 countries. The tally changes almost every day. Schools nearby are transferring students over and the school’s staff of 27 teachers — who speak 21 languages — are recruiting in the ethnic churches and community centers of Long Island City, the school’s home.

There are no simple days here. The sign outside of Burrows’s office says “Principal” in five languages. Some students had to be taught how to use a pay phone and take the subway when they arrived. Once a week, parents come by to sit in on language classes. The school just elected a student council, but language barriers make it difficult for some members to speak to one another.

Students are grouped in classes not by age or nationality but by their fluency in English. Although some emphasis is placed on native languages and cultures at Newcomer High, the multicultural component is not as predominant as in most traditional forms of bilingual education. In this experiment most students are taught largely in English and teachers look for any edge to help students learn the language and the customs of the strange new world in which they now live.

Some students are working on an international cookbook — in English. An art teacher recently had her students decorate shoe boxes to illustrate an aspect of their culture, then compare it to an aspect of American life. They are on display in a trophy case in a hall. One student from a rural part of Pakistan drew stick figures on a roof and wrote, in English: “In Pakistan, roofs are very important. Ninety percent of people sleep on them in the summer because it is hot. In the United States, roofs are not so important.”

Another display case is filled with sealed envelopes that have colorful drawings of students’ homelands. Inside each one, students have written in English their dreams for their new lives in America. The envelopes will be opened at the end of the school year.

One recent morning, Angie Margiotta, a teacher who has worked in bilingual education programs for decades, was trying to teach the students in her English language class by using a workbook called “No Hot Water Tonight.” It presents situations common to many homes and families and creates vocabulary exercises from them.

She also gave them an assignment called “The Sounds of the Street,” an attempt to have them learn more about American culture (and language) by bringing a sample of their native music to class, describing it, then comparing it to American music.

“You try to teach in context, and with the things that are on their minds — like music,” Margiotta said. “It’s hard sometimes, but I think students are more comfortable here. Everyone has the same problems. Everyone is in the same boat.”

Upstairs, Emma Wang was trying to speak to her history class over the rumble of subway trains that pass some school windows and the jackhammer blasts from industrial construction sites next door. Her lesson that day was supposed to be about how European culture changed during the Middle Ages. But at times, it seemed that some of her students were only trying to pronounce whatever words she said.

“Everyone!” Wang’s stern voice snapped them to attention. “Repeat after me. Ages!”

“Feudalism!” she called next.

Then: “Crusades!”

She made students stand whenever they spoke and did not let them mumble any answer to her questions. “I want to see more hands,” she said as she darted around the room.

Job Carretero had his up the whole time. He is 16 years old and came to New York City from Mexico earlier this year to live with relatives and earn money. All he did for a while was clean dishes in a restaurant but he said he knew that would not get him far.

Fearful of other public schools, he heard about Newcomer High and decided to come here to try to learn more English.

“At the other schools, I think you are always on the outside, and that is hard,” Carretero said. “Here, it’s not that way. The teachers help you, and I like to meet people from so many places. You learn from them. In another school, I think I would only stay all the time with the people who spoke my language. Now, I think when I go to my next school, it will be with more courage.”

Yet there is no proof that the immigrant schools work. California has had the most experience with newcomer highs, but the students who attend them are not tracked after they leave. Academic programs at the schools also have not been evaluated.

Lorraine McDonnell, a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara who is a specialist in immigration issues and has studied newcomer high schools, said the uncertainty about how effective they are is one reason some cities have not tried them. Another is serious concern that having a school only for immigrants may raise their public profile too much — and ignite more public backlash against them.

“This is a real dilemma for educators,” McDonnell said. “To what extent do you call attention to your immigrants students and their needs, and risk making them more vulnerable to political resentment and criticism?”

After California voters last year approved Proposition 187, which would prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving an array of public services, including education, some students at the Newcomer High School in San Francisco disappeared from class and never returned even though implementation of the initiative has been tied up in the courts since the day after the election.

McDonnell said she believes the schools are most effective strictly as transitional programs for new immigrant students who should go on to regular schools after no more than one academic year. “You don’t want to segregate students by ethnicity for very long,” she said. “But these kinds of schools can work because they are smaller, can pay much more attention to students, and can have a very focused academic mission.”

New York’s Newcomer High expects to have twice as many students by early next year. Its enrollment has leaped from 80 to 400 since the beginning of the school year. There is plenty of room in the high school building, which would otherwise have been abandoned.

Getting started has been tough, but Newcomer High is beginning to look like any other school. Clubs are forming. A dance is being planned. Students are giving lame excuses — in English — for not doing homework. Teachers and students decorated for the holidays in a way that reflects all of their cultures.

Wang said that as the weeks pass, more students are even raising their hands and speaking up. “That is the best sign,” she said. “If we don’t help them lose that fear here, they will carry it with them for many years. They will not dare to go ahead.”



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