In 35 states, students have a right to attend high school until at
least age 20; a 74 investigation revealed a 19-year-old immigrant
was repeatedly turned away.
This story was originally published at The 74, a non-profit,
independent news organization focused on education in America,
and was produced with support from the Education Writers
Association Reporting Fellowship program.
Update: Major cities are taking added steps to protect immigrant students’ educational rights in direct response to The 74's undercover investigation that revealed rampant enrollment discrimination against older newcomers. “It is very concerning that there is confusion among school districts about this issue,” an Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman said. Some are rewriting or re-issuing legal guidelines, others are calling the offending schools or pushing to strengthen the laws around maximum enrollment age. The 74’s investigation comes as conservative forces are moving to deny immigrant children access to school.
Sometimes, it takes just a few seconds for a high school staffer to end a newcomer student’s educational career.
Other times, it can take slightly longer for a gentle push to morph into a shove as secretaries, registrars, counselors and principals say, with increasing irritation, that older immigrant students are destined to fail.
Bottom line, they insist, these new arrivals are not worth enrolling.
“He’s going to come to us and he’s going to be a dropout,” Paul Measso, director of school counseling at New Jersey’s Kearny High School, said when asked to admit a 19-year-old Venezuelan transplant as part of an undercover investigation by The 74. Continue reading here!
This analysis was published in Palabra, a multimedia platform of NAHJ (National Association of Hispanic Journalists). THANK YOU.