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Internationals Network for Public Schools.
The Executive Director of the Internationals Network Claire Sylvan explains: "Immigrant students come to schools with a wealth of knowledge and experiences, whether or not they received formal education in their home countries. Creating educational environments that can develop their existing capacities benefits the students, their families, and society as a whole by enabling these young people to become productive members of democratic society. We see our work as central to building and defending democracy." Each Internationals school is a four-year, accredited public high school that uses the Internationals’ Network Approach as its pedagogical method. All of the students share the experience of migration and the diversity of the student body is highly respected by the teachers and among the students. The classes are small and the learning environment is intimate and learner-centered. Instruction is project based, and the curriculum is interdisciplinary, incorporating performance-based assessments. Within the classrooms, students are grouped heterogeneously by language and academic ability, working collaboratively on content-based tasks in a language-rich environment. Teachers work in teams developing courses of study for the same small group of students. Language instruction is incorporated into all classes as all teachers in the school have language development expertise. (Also see Focus on New Language Development) Teachers get to know their students well and teams are collectively responsible for supporting them in all spheres (with guidance support and/or through advisory.) A twelfth grade math teacher at one Internationals ’ high school summed up the school ethos by saying: “Our school expects us to know our students, and push them. And to care about them.” The schools serve a range of students. Some have parents who are highly educated, while others have parents with little education or have interrupted educations of their own. A Tower of Babel of languages and the range of skills require flexibility from the teacher and skilled use of the heterogeneous groupings along with seizing every teachable moment to scaffold language learning.. A teacher explains how this is done: I assign more advanced kids the more challenging questions, whereas low level kids, I will have them do simple things even if it is find pictures. And even though they don't do the same tasks, they will still need to bring back whatever they're supposed to do and explain it to the whole group. And when they are explaining their part, they have to understand that and they are practicing their speaking, which they need. This practice, enacted daily in every classroom across schools has led to extremely successful outcomes. The Internationals Network for Public Schools is expanding current conceptions of what it takes to educate immigrant youth and exemplifying ways to achieve success. For further information, see http://www.internationalsnps.org |
Started 25 years ago, the mission of Internationals Network is to provide high quality education for newly arrived immigrant students through a unique educational model based on exploration of interdisciplinary academic content in linguistically heterogeneous, learner-centered environments. Serving over 4000 students in twelve schools in New York and California, Internationals’ four-year graduation rate is 65 percent (compared to New York City’s 33 percent for the comparable English language learning student population and 52 percent for the general student population.) Their seven-year graduation rate is even more impressive — 90 percent of the Internationals’ students go on to college. The Internationals Network’s exceptional success rate and strategy for scaling-up earned it a 2009 E Pluribus Unum Prizeaward from the Migration Policy Institute for Exceptional Immigrant Integration Initiatives. See