SEATTLE – New research shows “rapid population changes” – tied to a flood of immigrants and an increase in poor students – are taking a toll on “economically distressed” suburban schools.

“Suburban Schools: The Unrecognized Frontier in Public Education” published by the Center on Reinventing Public Education this month notes that suburban schools “now rival urban districts in the challenges they face, having experienced dramatic population changes in just the past decade, with fast growing number of English Language Learners and students living in poverty.”

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The Center, which works with University of Washington Bothell, supplied numerous examples of the changing student demographics in suburban schools and offered suggestions on how officials “can support smart changes to help their school systems address the risks and opportunities associated with these rapid population changes,” according to the CRPE website.

“In Highline Public Schools, just outside of Seattle, the number of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch has increased by over 25 percentage points since 1998, and ELLs grew from 7% to 21%,” CRPE reports.

“In neighboring Kent, Washington, in the past decade the ELL student population grew from 3% to 14% in a system of 27,000 students.

“In Minnesota’s suburbs, half of the ELL population are refugees, which brings challenges beyond just navigating language barriers.”

The report details several ways the wave of non-English speaking learners, refugees, and poor students can overwhelm suburban school systems.

“Abrupt changes I the student population can lead to cultural mismatches and misunderstandings. When teachers have negative perceptions of students, it can adversely impact student behavior and lead to measurable declines in achievement,” according to the research.

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“Teachers unfamiliar with low-income or minority students are likely to view them as not ready for school or unprepared for grade-level work. Cultural differences can easily be mistaken as expressions of learning or emotional disability,” the report reads. “Race continues to influence teacher perception of students’ potential.”

The report contends that meeting the challenges in educating students who don’t speak English or others with special needs is expensive, and suggests ways schools can cut down on costs, such as starting charter schools run by independent companies, using specialty teachers at multiple schools, and using contractors for some services.

The report concludes that offering parents a range of educational opportunities for their children – from traditional district schools, to charter schools or other options – using a “portfolio strategy” that’s proven to be successful at increasing student achievement in inner cities.

“Inner-ring suburban leaders can benefit from the experience of central cities that, like Denver, D.C., and New York City, have found ways to steadily increase achievement and graduation rates for low-income and migrant students,” according to the report.

“These leaders can also find suburban exemplars: Duncan Klussmann, superintendent in the Houston suburb of Spring Branch, Texas, or Calvin Watts, recently moved to Kent, Washington, after transforming the schools in Gwinnett County, Georgia. They are pursuing what we call a portfolio strategy, which seeks to develop new schooling options, whether district-run or chartered, to meet new needs, to give parents the ability choose which of those options is the best match for their children, and to attract and keep excellent educators by offering an attractive bargain—for example, freedom in exchange for demonstration of results.”

The key to transforming suburban schools into institutions that are ready and able to serve the changing student demographic will hinge on decision-makers willing to break the public school monopoly on education in favor of a school choice model, the researchers argue.

“Suburban leaders—mayors, city planners, county officials, school board members—could all help their school systems by supporting the portfolio strategy and making sure the next superintendent hired is one who believes the system should be a driver of experimentation and improvement, not a monopoly provider of an unchanging set of schools.”