Newcomer Programs

This article examines the small but growing presence of newcomer programs being implemented in urban middle and high school settings across the United States. The article provides the rationale for the development of newcomer programs for recent immigrant English language learners and a detailed summary of the data collected and analyzed during the course of a national study. The article describes the program designs in urban schools, their educational goals, their instructional practices, their acculturation strategies, and other issues. Vignettes about selected programs will illustrate the data. Implications for current and future education policy and practice will be identified, such as the need for opportunities for fledgling programs to gather information to develop successful practices, the need for more rigorous evaluation of these programs within and across school districts, and the need for more research to help identify the optimal program design for a given group of newcomer students and educational goals.