Skip to Main Content

Why Are So Many Top Grads Refugees and Immigrants?

Why Are So Many Top Grads Refugees and Immigrants?

By Patricia Nyhan 

Each day brings more news stories about outstanding refugee and immigrant high school graduates who overcame heartstopping obstacles. This graduation season, more of these inspiring stories than ever are circulating because Mandy Manning, 2018 Teacher of the Year, is telling them.

In handing President Trump 33 of her students’ letters during her White House award ceremony, she shone a spotlight on their achievements. The fact that Manning, who teaches refugees and immigrants, was chosen Teacher of the Year will keep the issue in our national discussion for months to come.

Do refugee and immigrant students outperform American-born teens nationally, or does it just seem that way?

Educators who look for the answer to this question come up with little actual proof, but plenty of anecdotal evidence. And not just in our country – Australia and England report the same phenomenon. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which operates schools in the Middle East, has documented that Syrian and Palestinian students living in some of the world’s most deprived and dangerous circumstances outperform their regional public school peers.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/education/resilience-refugees-and-education-change

Why?

“Resilience.” Many researchers conclude what teachers like Manning know from experience:  Overcoming adversity can help build resilience so necessary for thriving in a new environment.  Also, the students put a high premium on education as the path to success.

That’s not to say that high school success always leads to the American dream.

Harvard University researchers advised teachers to be wary of conveying “false hopes” that school success would translate equally into livelihood opportunities for all students, since after graduation they may encounter race and socioeconomic status barriers to that dream: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/02/refugees-us-unfulfilled-dream

 

That’s why schools need to prepare students for realities beyond graduation before that big day. One way to do that, say the Harvard folks, is by connecting them to tutors and other interested community members. There’s our opportunity to help them achieve lifelong success.

 

We are collecting refugee and immigrant grad success stories from across the U.S. Read them here: Honor Roll of Refugee & Immigrant Grads. If you see one from where you live, consider sending a letter to the editor of your local newspaper thanking them for covering this important issue.