Illegal Immigrants Squeeze School Budgets
” Washington-area schools are facing budget crises as a result of an influx of immigrant students, according to a recent report.
Since the 2005-06 school year, the percent of students enrolled in English proficiency classes has increased by an average of nearly 70 percent across seven school districts in the D.C. metro area, according to a report by the advocacy group, Federation for American Immigration Reform, which promotes tighter border security, an end to illegal immigration and reduced levels of legal immigration.
Those classes cost an average of about one quarter of each district’s budget, and the chunk is getting larger as new students, many of them illegal immigrants or children of illegal immigrants, enroll in English-as-a-second-language classes.
Disproportionate enrollment increases in the English-learner classes is troubling, because non-English speakers can cost up to twice as much as their proficient counterparts, according to the report.
“ Education experts have long realized that the cost of educating a student who is not proficient in English far exceeds the amount actually allocated,” the report said.”
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