This is an example of some of the illegals lack of concern for their children.

http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/142280.html

Students of migrants workers run into learning curb
By TANIA deLUZURIAGA
tdeluzuriaga@miamiherald.com
Yovanna Godinez finished high school in three years, can run a 5K race in 20 minutes and dreams of a career in sports medicine.

But it wasn't always this way. The slender, 18-year-old Homestead woman was once a gang member, failed the seventh grade and spent her childhood traveling around the country with her migrant-farmworker mother -- who later abandoned her.

''I met a lot of people who brought me down and didn't believe in me,'' she said.

Fortunately, Godinez said, she also met people from Miami-Dade's federally funded migrant education program. They tutored her at Homestead Senior High, made sure she had enough to eat and helped her find scholarships to pay for college.

''It was the thread that held her so she didn't completely fall apart,'' said Vivian Gonzales, a teacher at Campell Drive Middle School who watched Godinez go from a chronically absent adolescent to a high school student who took advanced placement classes and competed in varsity cross country and track.

Across the country, many students like Godinez are at risk of slipping through the cracks of America's education system. Frequent moves, language barriers and widespread poverty create challenges that make the children of migrants one of the lowest performing student groups in the nation.

Now, steadily shrinking allocations for migrant education have meant a reduction in services in school districts across the nation, including Miami-Dade, which has had its budget cut by 34 percent since 2005. In addition, the U.S. Department of Education last month proposed potentially far reaching changes in how states get migrant funding and how they decide who qualifies for the program.

''There does seem to be an effort at the national level to kill programs that help poor people,'' said Cipriano Garza, a former federal housing official who oversees Miami-Dade's migrant program. ``They think we can all pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. It's not that easy.''

The Bush administration suspects that the migrant education program, created in 1966, is undermined by persistent problems and possible fraud. Recent recounts have shown that in some states, as many as 75 percent of children enrolled in migrant programs don't meet the federal criteria. Florida's error rate was about 8 percent.

''In some cases, the errors . . . may be actionable as civil or criminal fraud,'' says the proposal outlining the changes.

DWINDLING NUMBERS

The number of migrant-family students across the nation has dwindled in recent years. Broward County has fewer than 800, while in Miami-Dade nearly 2,200 students meet the federal definition of migrant -- which requires that families have moved within the last 36 months to pursue agricultural labor.

However, some advocates consider that definition to be too narrow. Even after a student has stopped moving around, cultural norms persist that often result in teenage pregnancy, gang violence and drug and alcohol abuse, Garza said.

''Those you don't fix in three years,'' he said.

The definitions, however, may get even stricter. Under the changes proposed last month, a family's move would have to be for the primary purpose of obtaining temporary or seasonal employment in agricultural. In addition, some jobs would no longer count as migrant farm work.

''We are concerned a significant number of children will be cut out of the program,'' said Miami-Dade Associate Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. ``To punish the nation as a whole for what appears to be abuses of [some] local agencies is taking a draconian approach.''

Miami-Dade supplements its migrant program with general Title I funds, which the federal government gives school districts to provide extra services for poor students. That allows the district to continue providing services to migrant children, even if they haven't moved in the last three years.

THE STABILITY FACTOR

That blending is what kept Godinez involved with the migrant community throughout high school, even though she hasn't moved since seventh grade. That stability, she said, was paramount to her transformation.

''I don't think I'd be here right now,'' she said. ``It would have been the opposite, I wouldn't have been able to find a way out.''

But the district's overall Title I budget has been shrinking. Preliminary budget estimates for the 2007-08 school year show that the district will get $8.4 million less than last year.

''The level of services may be affected,'' said Magaly Abrahante, assistant superintendent who oversees all of Miami-Dade's Title I programs. ``We may reduce tutoring, offer fewer hours per child . . . . There's just not enough money to go around to really meet the needs.''