I am currently working as a school psychologist, and below I will try to decipher the latest school report on immigrant students in Denmark. In Denmark, we use "bilingual" as a word for immigrant student -- and according to the report, by far most of these students are Turks, Pakistanis, Arabs and Serbs/Croatians. While Serbs and Croatians perform normally, the Muslim students perform very poorly. Below the chart are some of the salient facts.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an OECD programme that assesses the intellectual capacity of 15-year-old students in industrialised countries: "Every three years, it assesses knowledge and skills essential for full participation in society in students near the end of compulsory education." In Denmark, we make an additional analysis of the PISA data called PISA Ethnic (the performance of immigrant students).
The 2005 PISA Ethnic report (page 5) showed that 64 percent of students with an Arab background in Denmark are "functionally illiterate" -- meaning that their reading and writing capabilities are so poor that they will not be able to complete even a simple education. The same specific analysis of Arab immigrants was not made in the 2009 report, but Pisa Ethnic 2009 (published in 2011) (not online, summary here) still contains very interesting information about the foreigners that our politicians and the EU keep telling us will keep our high-tech work market running and pay our pensions.
The report shows that immigrant students are on average two years behind their Danish classmates.
Excerpts from PISA Ethnic 2009:
Close to half of all immigrant students are not able to complete even a simple education. The same goes for one third of their descendents (2nd generation immigrants, born and raised in Denmark):
"PISA operates with a threshold that shows the percentage of students who have the functional reading competence making them able to complete a secondary education. In PISA 2009, 13% of students without an immigrant background are below this limit, while among immigrants, 43 percent and 32 percent for second generation immigrants (descendents from immigrants) are below the threshold."
Danish students score significantly lower in tests if more than 40 percent of their classmates are immigrants (probably partly because of more noise and less respect for teachers -- see below):
"In Denmark, pupils without an immigrant background who attend schools with 40 percent or more bilinguals have significantly lower scores in the PISA reading test compared to students without a migration background attending schools with fewer than 10% bilingual."
In schools with many immigrants, the students feel that the teachers are less caring and fair (are teachers at these specific schools are less friendly -- racism? -- or are immigrant students more prone to complain and exhibit a victim mentality?):
"Fewer students in schools with 40% or more bilingual students respond affirmatively that they get along well with most of their teachers, that their teachers are interested in their wellbeing, and that teachers treat them fairly, compared with students at other schools."
Schoolteachers have too low academic expectations for immigrant students (misguided compassion? Reverse racism?):
"Every fourth student who attends a school with between 40 and 60% bilingual pupils have a school leader who believes that teachers' low expectations of students inhibits student learning. This proportion is significantly larger than the other school types."
Schools with many immigrants have trouble with students destroying the educational atmosphere by being noisy. Teachers are also less respected among the students in schools with many immigrants:
"78% of pupils in schools with between 40 and 60% bilingual pupils in Denmark have a principal who experiences problems with pupils who destroy the learning atmosphere at the school. Students' disrespect for teachers also seems to constitute an impediment to learning in schools with between 40 and 60% immigrants."
Immigrant students' ability to reflect has become even worse (lack of reflection leads to victim mentality and a black-and-white, good-and-bad perception of the world):
"The ability (of immigrant students) to reflect has diminished by eight points."
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