Posted on 2/15/2007, 11:08:54 PM by lowbridge
Arizona taxpayers spend up to $1.2 billion annually to educate children of illegal immigrants
Children chat in Spanish between classes at Mesa’s Lindbergh Elementary School, and signs are posted in English and Spanish so parents can navigate the campus.
Fewer than 10 percent of Lindbergh students were Hispanic in 1980. Today, the figure has swelled to more than 75 percent.
But Jennifer Kill, a sixth-grade teacher at the school, said she has never asked if any of these students are illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants. Her job is to teach children, not to guard the border.
“As a teacher, you get the students that come to your door,” Kill said. “You don’t concern yourself with where they’re from, what they look like.”
People who do track immigration trends estimate that 125,000 to 145,000 children of illegal immigrants attend public elementary and secondary schools in Arizona.
That figure comes from the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., which is quick to point out that about half of these students are likely U.S. citizens born in this country.
The Pew estimate nearly equals the enrollment of the Scottsdale, Mesa and Chandler unified school districts combined.
More than one in nine Arizona students is an illegal immigrant or the child of an illegal immigrant, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
To educate these children, school finance experts in Arizona suggest taxpayers will spend as much as $1.2 billion this year alone.
TEACHERS IN THE MIDDLE
Despite the Pew estimate, nobody knows for sure how many children of illegal immigrants attend Arizona schools.
That’s because schools such as Lindbergh aren’t allowed to ask. A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling states that all children in the United States have a constitutional right to a public education regardless of their immigration status or the status of their parents.
When children enroll in public school, their parents must show proof of residency but not a Social Security number. Many families bring Mexican birth certificates and transcripts from Mexican schools.
New students who speak a language other than English at home are then tested for English proficiency.
On a recent day at Lindbergh, all 11 students who were tested for language proficiency qualified for additional state funding as “English language learners.”
Kill said she’s aware of Arizona’s debate over illegal immigration, but she refuses to speculate about anybody’s immigration status in her classroom.
“Do I think there are illegals taking time away?” she said. “Not at all. It never crosses my mind.”
She said more than half of her 30 students speak Spanish or a dialect close to Spanish, and she does “whatever it takes” to help these students succeed.
Billion-dollar debate
Depending on whom you ask, it costs between $7,720 and $8,500 each year to educate one Arizona child in the public school system.
Those numbers include federal, state and local funding for everything from teacher salaries, transportation, school nurses, meals, tutoring, special education, administration and school construction and maintenance.
The estimate also includes money the state sets aside each year for special English instruction for students not yet fluent.
All this spending infuriates opponents of illegal immigration.
“We have no obligation whatsoever to the illegal immigrant that’s here,” said Albert Rodriguez, a Hispanic U.S. citizen from Scottsdale.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne disagrees. He says all children in this country should be educated regardless of how they got here.
“We’re not going to leave these kids out in the street and not educate them,” Horne said. “If they’re here, they have to be educated.”
But some critics say Horne and state lawmakers don’t go far enough to educate these children.
Tim Hogan, an attorney with the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, said the true cost of educating English learners is much more than the state allocates.
“The state needs to help kids overcome language barriers that impede them from equal participation in public schools,” said Hogan, who represents a Nogales family in a 15-year-old lawsuit that accuses the state of shortchanging English learners.
A federal judge sided with Hogan in 2000, and lawmakers responded by doubling the English immersion funding for each qualified student to $355 per year.
With 132,000 English learners in Arizona, that comes to nearly $47 million annually. But that’s still not enough, according to the judge.
“The court has said, ‘We think that’s too little,’ and we’re litigating that,” Horne said.
COLLEGE ROADBLOCK
Not all students designated as English learners are children of illegal immigrants.
Some English learners are the children of legal residents. Conversely, some fluent English speakers are illegal immigrants. Hogan’s case does not concern itself with how these numbers break down.
Jesus, a 16-year-old high school junior who declined to give his surname, acknowledges that he lacks proper documentation.
“When I got here, I started taking some English classes because I didn’t know like, anything at all,” said Jesus, who moved from Mexico in 2002.
When Jesus signed up for classes, he said he brought his Mexican birth certificate and his transcripts.
“I’m a good student,” said Jesus, who said he had the equivalent of an “A” average when he moved to Arizona.
Gabriela, a 17-year-old illegal immigrant who moved to the United States with her family when she was 2, said most illegal immigrants pay taxes and should be welcome at public schools.
“One way or another, we should be getting what we pay for,” she said.
Students like Jesus and Gabriela said they want to succeed in the U.S., and there are teachers trying to help them.
“That’s the reason we’re here,” Kill said. “So my students can graduate and they can get jobs and be productive.”
But instead of being excited for their high school graduations, Jesus and Gabriela said they are nervous.
They said they can’t afford to pay out-of-state tuition after Proposition 300 passed, and they don’t want to go back to Mexico.
Prop. 300, which voters approved in 2006, requires state colleges and universities to check Social Security numbers and charge out-of-state tuition for applicants without proper documentation.
“I see a lot of people getting their applications in,” Gabriela said. “I try to look at it and there it is … it’s like, where is your Social Security number? It’s like a slap in the face.”
Jesus called the citizenship requirement unfair.
“I’m as good as American citizens,” he said. “I’m even smarter than some of them.”
But Rodriguez, who founded an illegal immigration watchdog group in May called You Don’t Speak for Me, offers a solution.
“There is a place to go,” he said. “Get his parents to take him back where he came from.”
Gabriela’s father said he has no regrets for bringing his family to Arizona. He said in Mexico, he only made it through the third grade.
Now he wants his family members to become U.S. citizens.
“From the very start you struggle if you decide to come here without a visa,” he said.
CITIZENSHIP WITH DIPLOMAS?
Horne has a plan that would reward high school graduates with citizenship. All they would have to do is pass a test.
“If there’s a standardized test that confirms it, that the student does well and learned, I would have no objection to that,” Horne said.
But Rodriguez said Horne’s proposal would create an incentive for immigrants to break the law while there are other people waiting in line to become citizens.
“They’re doing it the right way,” Rodriguez said. “Why should these people step in the front of the line and break another rule?”
The bottom line, Horne said, is that illegal immigration is the parents’ fault — not the children’s fault.
“Let’s fight the Supreme Court again,” Rodriguez said. “And let’s see what happens.”
better than having to pay $6 for a head of lettuce!!!
And anyone who disagrees with the above statement is a racist.
81% of my property tax goes for schools. I wouldn't mind that if the kids were LEGAL, but it sure burns me to finance someone who is growing up hating America and demanding that I educate them.
PERSPECTIVE:
The U.S. total debt to the UN since World War II = $1.3 billion.
My daughter, a fourth generation American, attended Arizona State University her junior and senior year, graduating last May. She had to pay out of state tuition both years.
It's just so sad, racist, and totally unfair that illegal Mexicans can't come here and pay only a third of what she had to pay.
/S
No doubt. I'm really mad also that I was asked for MY Social Security number 5 million times during college too. I mean REALLY, how dare they. (/sarc)
Solution: 1) Insure the UN property for several billion dollars with European insurance companies. 2) Burn the UN down to the ground.
ARRRRRGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!
My son got out of the air force after 4 years and moved in with me (Kingman, AZ) last August. He wants to go for a law degree. But not here. Having been born and raised in Alaska he too falls under the one year rule. I am anxious to see what happens when proposition 300 we passed here in AZ begin to be enforced.......or not enforced. I predict that the Napolitano administration will find some way to circumvent the will of the people on this and other propositions passed recently. Oh, my son has applied to Duke.....mayhe can join the LaCrosse team.
There is an upside, at least about illegals in Arizona.
They don't ghetto-ize very much at all in Phoenix, so their integration is much faster, they get jobs instead of slacking off, their kids speak English, and the big point: with one or two generations of hard work and success, they become politically conservative and tend to support republicans.
Their kids are totally disconnected from Mexico, and are fully Americanized.
This is almost the exact opposite of illegals that land in California.
Looking to the future, now that Mexico's birthrate has dropped to 2.3 kids per family, their sky high emigration to the US will have to strongly decline, and wages in Mexico will have to go up. So even if we do nothing, the situation will improve.
The worst danger is that Mexico has become politically unstable, and could descend into a civil war like they had in the early part of the 20th Century, except with millions of refugees wanting to cross the border.
America no longer has the luxury of just ignoring them.
In other words, the taxpayers have a consitutional obligation to pay for the education of illegal immigrants?
Oh, like we don't know where you're coming from...joined freep on 6-6-06, or 6-6-6.
(honestly, i have no comment on your post but I thought the sign up date was a hoot)
Perhaps Jennifer should have her salary reduced in order to defray that extra billion dollars of taxpayer dollars. Better yet, ask Jennifer how much more salary she could have if she wasn't paying for the illegals education?
ping
Using the money of people who didn't consent to use it to do "whatever it takes"
And, wait till the anchor babies start to vote. Who do you think they will vote for? It will be the politician that promises compensation to madre and padre for their years of suffering at the hands of evil white men.
[“That’s the reason we’re here,” Kill said. “So my students can graduate and they can get jobs and be productive.” ]
And she is also apparently unaware that those students will not be able to hold a job LEGALLY, so she is really educating people that will need to go back to Mexico or work ILLEGALLY.
ILLEGALS will always be an underclass here in America, and I can understand why that is OK with THEM -- it is better than wherever they came from. What I can't understand is the Americans that claim to be impartial about the creation and perpetuation of an underclass. They are either in favor of this vis-a-vis the slave-owner mentality, or they are frauds and are really open-borders liberals wanting to swell the voting ranks to usher in the Socialist State.
Holla class, repeat after me.
"Stick your hands up!"
Ok, fine. Lets try another.
"My baby is American. I want my housing."
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