It's actually a question tangential to some of the work I do, so I'm familiar some of the literature on this topic. There is a performance gap, and it's known

It's actually a question tangential to some of the work I do, so I'm familiar some of the literature on this topic. There is a performance gap, and it's known as the "immigrant paradox" [1]. In short, research results show that achievement between imigrants & non immigrants of similar income levels is mixed. At earlier grades there is sometimes a performance gap that somewhat disappears in later grades. The gap may also be more pronounced in lower quality schools and disappear in better schools. It's not a fully understood phenomenon, but I've seen speculation that families and their children that have been through the upheaval of immigrating to a new country may be a little more resilient to the sometimes-constant upheaval forced on families by poverty. And that native families at lower incomes are also more likely to be single-parent families. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624018/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624018/