After reading Sulkowski’s “Unauthorized immigrant students in the United States: The current state of affairs and role in public education” and doing research, I was able to find more information on unauthorized students in America’s education system and the impact that this process has on their overall well being inside and outside the classroom as well as on their academics and the schools in which they are attending.
This article touches on key elements pertaining to this issue that the United States still battles with. By developing his article through a strong use of statistics, Sulkowski has helped me as a reader to discover a vast amount of general and statistical information which I think can often help put it into a more realistic perspective. Additionally by developing his ideas in blocked sections, it allows the reader to focus on the soul purpose of that section and gain a clear understanding of the message that is being portrayed. In pulling information from a variety of different sources listed throughout the work, the view point in which the article comes from is diverse and offers a variety of insights and opinions from the course of the past few years. By providing background information and terminology as well as in covering deportation practices, pathway to citizenship, school enrollment, relationships and impacts, the reader is very informed going forward and now has a strong foundational knowledge on the topic of the immigration impact of U.S. Education.
Unpacking the work of Michael Sulkowski takes quite a bit of time due to the complexities in which he tackles. Immigration has been a long lasting issue in this country and today more than ever, it is prevalent in the education system. However, due to programs such as FAPE, these children that are not legalized citizens are still entitled to a “free and adequate” (Sulkowski) education and this is something that many Americans do not know about. In large, understanding Sulkowski’s work, the reader must be able to understand the statistics that are presented. Initially for me a hard statistic to grapple with was that 5 million youth are unauthorized in this country. Another statistic I found intriguing was the significant increase in deportations between the Bush and Obama presidency, “between 319,000 and 435,000 individuals were removed each year from 2007 through 2014” (Sulkowski). While data isn’t everything, it is critical to get a grasp on just how much of an impact this population has on our countries function as well as on the education system.
One significant area of the article I chose to focus on in regards to the article studied in class and in my current connection was what the schools are doing to create a sense of community for this population of students. This was largely mentioned within the reading as Sulkowski talks about the school community as the promise that these students need to get through times of uncertainty. Families in this situation often feel isolated, alone, or even scared to participate in society because of their circumstance. Teachers are not bound by law to report any case of an illegal child in their class or school to the government so it is up to this teacher to mindfully help this family find additional community resources to ensure that his or her student is in a place where they can feel safe. Within my current connection article, “How Schools Are Responding to Migrant Children”, Kavitha Cardoza also speaks to the sense of community that these students need because it is not something that they have had in a long time. “They don’t trust people because they’ve been hurt in the past..It takes a very long time and lots of meetings to gain their trust” (Cardoza). Cardoza goes on to explain ways that schools are providing a sense of community to these students such as hanging different country flags along hallways or stocking the library with different cultural books or Spanish titles. When the students see things such as these, they are able to see their school as a safe place full of people they can trust.
Additionally, another connection that I was able to make to Sulkowski’s article from Cardoza’s was in regards to the psychological and academic impacts and challenges that these students face. Due to the diverse culmination of experiences that these students have been raised in, they may struggle in both of these realms. Sulkowski raises the point of multi-tier systems of support (MTSS) which have been implemented into about 90% of the states. These support systems help to ensure educational success as well as early intervention in order to help struggling students. As a possible future educator, it is encouraging to see that so many school districts are on board for creating effective programs such as these to help students not only academically but psychologically as well. My article made a connection to this idea of aiding students’ psychological health. While many students from this population are coming in with trauma and damage, Cardoza speaks to something else schools are doing to aid students psychologically and that is providing specialized training to work with children that may have been traumatized or have had to overcome incredible obstacles given their age. Once programs and steps like those previously listed are in tact and psychological challenges are addressed, then students are able to flourish academically because they can cope with their past and focus on their education that lies ahead.
Work Cited:
Cardoza, Kavitha. “How Schools Are Responding to Migrant Children.” Education Week, 18 Nov. 2019, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/04/10/how-schools-are-responding-to-migrant-children.html.
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