Thread: The cost of educating an undocumented immigrant

05:37 PM CDT on Thursday, October 12, 2006

By Karla Barguiarena / 11 News

She may struggle with the words, sometimes mixing consonant sounds with vowels, but Daphne Camacho is still reading in English.

It’s a huge accomplishment for a student who recently moved from Mexico to Houston three months ago.

Daphne is just one of thousands of students in bilingual classes like this one at Mark Twain Elementary School.

In HISD alone, 40,000 kids are in the bilingual education program and 16,000 others take ESL, or English as a second language class.

But of those, how many are in this country illegally is anyone’s guess.

“We’re not allowed to nor would we ever care to know what their immigration status is,” HISD manager Jennifer Alexander said.

Alexander manages the multilingual programs for HISD. She said it would be difficult to estimate how many students are undocumented.

But a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform said about 12 percent of the public school students in Texas are children of undocumented immigrants.

The study also said educating them cost Texas taxpayers $3.9 billion in 2004.

Some call that a burden.

“You have to have additional teachers, materials, programs that specifically address the language barriers that some of these kids experience,” Stafford School District board member Hector Acevedo said.

Acevedo is on the Stafford Municipal School District Board

He has no doubt that teaching undocumented children is an added expense.

Critics point to bilingual teachers, who generally require higher salaries. Add to that tutorials, special programs and in some cases, the cost to feed the students during breakfast or lunch.

It may sound like a lot, but school administrators say it really isn’t.

“The materials come from the state that you use for the bilingual program so there really isn’t a huge cost difference,” Alexander said.

But undocumented students aren’t the only ones in these bilingual programs.

About half of this class is made up of kids whose first language is English.

Students such as Henry Martin are enrolled just to learn Spanish.

It’s a teaching model administrators say has proven to lead to high test scores and academic excellence.

As for the tens of thousands of undocumented students in the Houston area, Acevedo said, “I think the economic benefits that illegal immigrants bring to this country are offset...those burdens are offset by those values.”

And to a certain extent by taxes.

Immigrant advocates said while undocumented immigrants may not pay income taxes, they do pay some taxes, such as sales and sometimes property taxes.

Taxes that will help fund the education of America’s next generation.

http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/ ... d1081.html

American kids graduate and can't read their diploma, but we have resources to teach illegal aliens? Seems are priorities are mixed up?

D.W.

The cost of educating an undocumented immigrant

08:21 AM CDT on Friday, October 13, 2006

By Karla Barguiarena / KHOU

Click to watch video

She may struggle with the words, sometimes mixing consonant sounds with vowels, but Daphne Camacho is still reading in English.

It’s a huge accomplishment for a student who recently moved from Mexico to Houston three months ago.

Daphne is just one of thousands of students in bilingual classes like this one at Mark Twain Elementary School.

In HISD alone, 40,000 kids are in the bilingual education program and 16,000 others take ESL, or English as a second language class.

But of those, how many are in this country illegally is anyone’s guess.

“We’re not allowed to nor would we ever care to know what their immigration status is,” HISD manager Jennifer Alexander said.

Alexander manages the multilingual programs for HISD. She said it would be difficult to estimate how many students are undocumented.

But a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform said about 12 percent of the public school students in Texas are children of undocumented immigrants.

The study also said educating them cost Texas taxpayers $3.9 billion in 2004.

Some call that a burden.

“You have to have additional teachers, materials, programs that specifically address the language barriers that some of these kids experience,” Stafford School District board member Hector Acevedo said.

Acevedo is on the Stafford Municipal School District Board

He has no doubt that teaching undocumented children is an added expense.

Critics point to bilingual teachers, who generally require higher salaries. Add to that tutorials, special programs and in some cases, the cost to feed the students during breakfast or lunch.

It may sound like a lot, but school administrators say it really isn’t.

“The materials come from the state that you use for the bilingual program so there really isn’t a huge cost difference,” Alexander said.

But undocumented students aren’t the only ones in these bilingual programs.

About half of this class is made up of kids whose first language is English.

Students such as Henry Martin are enrolled just to learn Spanish.

It’s a teaching model administrators say has proven to lead to high test scores and academic excellence.

As for the tens of thousands of undocumented students in the Houston area, Acevedo said, “I think the economic benefits that illegal immigrants bring to this country are offset...those burdens are offset by those values.”

And to a certain extent by taxes.

Immigrant advocates said while undocumented immigrants may not pay income taxes, they do pay some taxes, such as sales and sometimes property taxes.

Taxes that will help fund the education of America’s next generation.


http://www.kvue.com/news/state/stories/ ... baa39.html