America\u2019s immigration policies are amplifying the perennial pleas for more public school funding.<\/p>\n
Each year, an estimated 5 million refugees and immigrants \u2013 legal and illegal \u2013 are enrolled at K-12 campuses with a variety of special needs. More than 175,000 unaccompanied children settled in the U.S. since 2014, with some 18,000 arriving in just 10 counties last year.<\/p>\n
A new report by the Migration Policy Institute<\/a> runs down these pupils\u2019 high-cost needs. Going far beyond the basics of learning English, the list includes mental-health care, legal representation, \u201csocioemotional services,\u201d even \u201chousing rights.\u201d<\/p>\n This naturally necessitates a growing phalanx of providers inside and outside the classroom. Surveying widely varying literacy rates among the new arrivals, \u201cBeyond Teaching English\u201d advises districts to check the \u201clinguistic and cultural competence of staff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>How big is the challenge? FAIR estimates that public schools will spend $43,396,433,856<\/a> serving children of illegal aliens this year \u2013 a massive unfunded mandate. Folding in the costs of legal immigrant pupils, FAIR said the tab totaled $59.8 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n A recent sampling of 27 high schools found 9,000 refugee\/immigrant students speaking 170-plus languages. \u201cForeign languages are a cause for celebration,\u201d an MPI researcher said, echoing the mantra of Washington\u2019s immigration enthusiasts.<\/p>\n Amid the celebration, however, the MPI study never addresses the actual costs of the party. Not a single dollar sign appears in the 36-page report, though its research revealed that five states — Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee<\/a> — each saw their English Learner populations more than double between 2000 and 2014.<\/p>\n The failure to address the fiscal impact of immigration is shared by federal politicians and policymakers who craft immigration policy with little or no regard to the downstream financial consequences. Under U.S. Department of Education edicts for minimum language proficiency, high school graduation cycles are creeping up to five or even six years among immigrants, according to the MPI report.<\/p>\n When FAIR asked about the price of increasingly intensive and expansive English Learner initiatives, lead author Julie Sugarman couldn\u2019t quantify it. Instead, she responded that \u201cmost (but not all) states provide (unspecified) higher funding for English Learners\u201d while Title 3 of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act earmarks $740 million annually for such programs.<\/p>\n