Adriana Villlavicencio is Co-PI of a three-year mixed-method study to learn more about the Internationals Network for Public Schools (INPS) and students, and to explore promising strategies to address the needs of recently arrived adolescent English learners. INPS is a system of public high schools that serve recently arrived students with low levels of English language proficiency. INPS schools serve a diverse range of students—arriving from 119 countries and speaking more than 90 languages. These students have been in the United States for four years or less and face many challenges that are common among English learners. The majority of INPS students live in high-poverty neighborhoods. This study will examine the academic achievement of students in NYC’s INPS high schools, compared to students with similar backgrounds who attend other public high schools in the City. The team will draw on these data to identify particularly high performing INPS schools; we will document practices being used in these schools, and test the relationship between these practices and key student outcomes. The goal of this work is to identify promising strategies that INPS and other schools can use to better serve recently arrived youth.
Funding: WT Grant Foundation.