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Many English Language Learners (ELLs) migrate to the United States at older ages and administrators must choose a grade in which to place these new entrants as soon as they register for school. In this study, I estimate the effect of grade placement on the short-term academic performance of ELLs who enroll in the Miami-Dade County Public School system between the ages of 7 and 12 using a district policy that determines grade placement decisions for newcomers by their birthdate relative to September 1. The results suggest some benefits to being placed in the lower of the two grades for students' achievement in mathematics, but no signs of benefits on other academic outcomes, including reading achievement, grade promotion, and exit from ELL status.

The authors use a rich data set on New York City public elementary schools to explore how changes in immigrant representation have played out at the school level, providing a set of stylistic facts about the magnitude and nature of demographic changes in urban schools. They find that while the city experienced an overall increase in its immigrant representation over the 5 years studied, its elementary schools did not. Although the average school experienced little change during this period, a significant minority of schools saw sizable shifts. The change does not mirror the White flight and "tipping" associated with desegregation but rather suggests a tendency to stabilize, with declines in immigrant enrollments concentrated in schools with larger immigrant populations at the outset. The authors also find that changes in the immigrant shares influence the composition of the school's students, and that overall school demographic changes do not mirror grade-level changes within schools. (Contains 8 tables.)

This article examines ethnic segregation, defined as segregation among racial groups as well as between native-born and immigrant students, across elementary school classrooms in New York City. Specifically, the study compares patterns in within-school segregation across ethnic groups, grades, boroughs, and years. Current levels of within-school segregation are also compared to levels of across-school segregation and to levels of segregation that result from three simulations where students are assigned to their classrooms: (a) randomly, (b) to achieve complete ethnic segregation, and (c) according to their prior year test scores. Results indicate that racial segregation across schools is far greater than racial segregation within schools, however the segregation of immigrants within-schools is equal to the segregation of immigrants across schools. Within-school segregation cannot be entirely attributed to random processes or to the use of ability grouping practices, particularly in the case of black and Hispanic segregation. Finally, segregation within-schools varies considerably across the five boroughs and declined during the second half of the 1990s. (Contains 9 tables, 1 figure, and 19 notes.)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2009.10.001 Byline: Leanna Stiefel (a), Amy Ellen Schwartz (b), Dylan Conger (c) Keywords: Immigrants; Mobility; Academic Performance; High Schools; Education; Urban public schools Abstract: In 2005, immigrants exceeded 12% of the US population, with the highest concentrations in large metropolitan areas. While considerable research has focused on how immigrants affect local wages and housing prices, less research has asked how immigrants fare in US urban public schools. Previous studies find that foreign-born students outperform native-born students in their elementary and middle school years, but urban policymakers and practitioners continue to raise concerns about educational outcomes of immigrants arriving in their high school years. We use data on a large cohort of New York City (NYC) public high school students to examine how the performance of students who immigrate during high school (teen immigrants) differs from that of students who immigrate during middle school (tween immigrants) or elementary school (child immigrants), relative to otherwise similar native-born students. Contrary to prior studies, our difference-in-difference estimates suggest that, ceteris paribus, teen immigrants do well compared to native-born migrants, and that the foreign-born advantage is relatively large among the teen (im)migrants. That said, our findings provide cause for concern about the performance of limited English proficient students, blacks and Hispanics and, importantly, teen migrants. In particular, switching school districts in the high school years - that is, student mobility across school districts - may be more detrimental than immigration per se. Results are robust to alternative specifications and cohorts, including a cohort of Miami students. Author Affiliation: (a) Economics and Education Policy, Institute for Education and Social Policy, Wagner and Steinhardt Schools, New York University, United States (b) Public Policy, Education and Economics, Institute for Education and Social Policy, Wagner and Steinhardt Schools, New York University, United States (c) Public Policy and Public Administration, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, The George Washington University, United States Article History: Received 23 September 2008; Revised 1 October 2009