Thread: Nashville: Schooling Costs for Illegals Rises

http://www.timesfreepress.com/absoluten ... &zoneid=77


Schooling costs up for illegal immigrants
Monday, August 13, 2007

By Andy Sher
Nashville Bureau

NASHVILLE -- The number of Tennessee students enrolled in programs for children with limited English skills, regarded as a "rough" measure of the impact of illegal immigration on schools, has more than doubled since 2000, according to a new report.

The state Comptroller's Office of Research and Education Accountability estimates that the number of students in English Language Learner programs increased by 152 percent from 10,616 to 26,707 from 2000 to 2006.

"The number of English language learners in Tennessee public schools has grown significantly, although these students remain a small percentage of all students statewide," states the "Immigration Issues in Tennessee" report.

Still, the percentage of English Language Learner students went from slightly under 1 percent of all students to about 3 percent by 2006, according to the report. Students enrolled in ELL programs comprised 43 percent of the overall state student growth of 39,291 over the same six-year period, the report says.

"I know that we're one of the states where that population is increasingly rapidly," state Education Commissioner Lana Seviers said.

In fiscal year 2007-08, state and local governments are projected to spend an estimated $51.4 million to educate these students.

The comptroller's office emphasized that English Language Learner program participants also include legal immigrants, U.S.-born children of naturalized citizens as well as children of legal and illegal immigrants. The report says it uses ELL participants as a "rough estimate" of illegal immigrants in schools.

The report looked at a wide range of illegal immigration issues in the wake of a flurry of legislation introduced in the 2006 and 2007 sessions of the General Assembly.

One of the report's main conclusions is that because the federal government has primary jurisdiction over immigration, state officials are limited in what they can do to discourage illegal immigration other than to urge federal officials to do more.

"Our purpose really was to provide more comprehensive information on the impact of immigration in Tennessee," said Susan Mattson, a senior legislative research analyst in the comptroller's office.

The report cites Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in 2005 there were 100,000 to 150,000 illegal immigrants in Tennessee, or about 2 percent of the estimated 6 million population. The number of foreign-born people, which includes legal and illegal immigrants, is about 223,000.

100-150 thousand illegals in Tennessee? There are millions in Texas where I live, so Tennessee sounds good in comparison.