The Elephant in the Classroom: Mass Immigration's Impact on Public Education
REPORT | SEPTEMBER 2016 | DOWNLOAD THE PDF ⇣
What Every Parent and Taxpayer Should Know About Immigration and the Public Education Crisis
Overview
Public school districts across the United States are suffering under a massive unfunded mandate imposed by the federal government: the requirement to educate millions of illegal aliens, the school age children of illegal aliens, refugees and legal immigrant students. FAIR estimates that it currently costs public schools $59.8 billion to serve this burgeoning population. The struggle to fund programs for students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), sometimes called English Language Learners (ELL), represents a major drain on school budgets. Yet due to political correctness, it is taboo to raise the issue even though scarce resources are redirected away from American citizens to support programs like English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and English as a Second Language (ESL).
The influx of newcomers to the public schools is helping President Barack Obama fulfill the promise he made five days before his election in 2008 to “fundamentally [transform] the United States.” Almost one in every ten students enrolled in public schools is designated as LEP. For kindergartners, the figure is 17.4 percent. In 2013, the Department of Education determined that the United States will require 82,408 new or trained LEP teachers by 2018—if school districts can find enough qualified candidates. Despite the growing LEP population, only 10 percent of teachers are currently certified or trained in ESL.1
Factors Straining Public Schools
A surge of Unaccompanied Alien Minors crossing the border from Mexico, Guatemala,Honduras and El Salvador beginning in 2014
Family units entering the country illegally
People overstaying their visas
Higher-than-average birthrates among families with an illegal head-of-household
Around a million legal immigrants granted permanent resident status every year since 2004
In addition, the spread of “sanctuary” policies across the country—cities, counties and two states (California and Connecticut) that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agencies—also serves as a magnet for illegal aliens. Almost every school district highlighted in this report operates in an active sanctuary jurisdiction.2
http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-elephant-in-the-classroom-mass-immigrations-impact-on-public-education
