Varying data leave incomplete picture of immigrants’ progress – Dallas schools From: dallasnews.com

Researchers have a good idea how many school-age children were born outside the U.S.

As for how these young immigrants fare in classrooms – how quickly they learn English; how often they repeat a grade; how many graduate on time – details are murky. That’s because, across the country, school districts vary widely in the information they collect, making it very hard to draw useful comparisons or study the progress of students.

“The data collected by schools is simply not particularly nuanced, especially for immigrants,” said Richard Fry, a researcher at the Pew Hispanic Center, a national nonprofit. “You don’t know where they were born. You don’t know how long they’ve been here. You don’t know anything about their parents.”"*

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