Wortham Named W.T. Grant Foundation Fellow

The William T. Grant Foundation has selected Penn GSE Professor Stanton Wortham to its fourth group of Distinguished Fellows. Dr. Wortham received this award for his work in studying the challenges that districts, schools, and practicing educators face in serving immigrant Mexican students.

The title of his project, "Involving Parents in the Schooling of Immigrant Mexican Students," reflects his interest in assisting such schools and districts in creating and implementing a plan to increase involvement of these parents in the education of their children.

Working with a suburban school district that has seen a surge of Mexican immigrants in recent years, Dr. Wortham will work with the district's ESL (English as a Second Language) coordinator, shadowing him in all aspects of his work.

Dr. Wortham will work with administrators and ESL teachers to develop and implement a parental involvement strategy. This fellowship will give Dr. Wortham the experience he needs to develop a research agenda that is more useful to educators working with immigrant students.  

Created to increase high-quality research designed to improve youth outcomes, the Distinguished Fellows program aims to bridge the gap between research, policy, and practice. Fellows are prominent researchers conducting work in practice or policy settings and practitioners and policymakers interested in to working in research settings.

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Media contact: Jill DiSanto-Haines at 215-898-4820 or jdisanto@upenn.edu