DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Conrad Johnson

Education 355 – 001

Dr. Diaz

February 15, 2011

 

Journal

 

The School Achievement of Immigrant Children 1900-1930

By: Michael Olneck & Marvin Lazerson

 

            After reading the article The School Achievement of Immigrant Children 1900-1930 one and two I was shock to see what the children of foreign background go through. My overview of the reading was that the children of foreign born were compared to children of white and native born parents on the measure school attendance, completion, retardation rates, basis of gender ratio. Stories my mother told me of when she first migrated here from Jamaica have relation to what these children faced during 1900-1930’s. Often if you were from another country the board of education system tend to put the child back a grade, while the child is well ahead of that grade level. It was not fair if you were a student who spoke English at home rather than a child whose home language was not English. I feel no matter where you come from, you should not be singled out, as a child growing up I was raised to have a respect for diversity. My mother always told me respect everyone for who they are and where they came from.

In the article the authors believed that retardation studies usually failed to account for age entrance, and the apparent advantage of some groups might have been due to this factor. While I was reading I came across the text saying large numbers of elementary pupils were not in the grade considered normal for their age level, a conditioned defined as retardation. This goes back to what I previously mentioned that coming from a another country has it pros and cons. Within the educational system here in New York City pupils are usually held back a grade. So I can say I agree with the authors when they made this valid point. In the last section of the article the authors focused on Southern Italians and Russians Jews, there in school performance was considered by the effects of nationality difference in parental length of residence in the US, native language, age at school entrance, standardized test scores, and occupational and income levels.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.