As State Budgets Go Deeper Into the Red, How Much Longer Can Educating Illegal Immigrants Continue?

By Joe Guzzardi
August 13, 2010

Within the next few weeks, kids will return to school. But many of their teachers will be sidelined as a result of deep state budget deficits.

Because of teacher layoffs, classroom overcrowding is more severe than it’s been in decades.

Unmanageable school population is the indirect but inevitable result of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that boxed American education into a corner. Gradually and despite the serious expense and consequences that the federal open door immigration policy brought to American students, public schools were forced to educate all newcomers.

California, for example, with its nearly $20 billion deficit, is at the breaking point.

According to the California Department of Education’s Demographic Unit, total K-12 enrollment has increased from the school year 1994-1995 to 2008-2009 by one million students. Today’s total enrollment is 6.3 million of which 1.5 million are designated English language learners.

California students’ ethnic makeup changed significantly during those 14 years. In 1994-1995, white pupils made up 42 percent of the total; Hispanic, 37 percent; African American, 9 percent and Asian, 8 percent.

In 2008-2009, however, California’s K-12 enrollment is Hispanic, 49 percent; white, 28 percent; Asian, 8 percent and African American, 7 percent.

The dramatic enrollment shift to predominantly foreign-born students prompts the obvious question: How much money should bankrupt California spend to educate students who may be illegal residents?

Estimates vary. But a conservative analysis puts the current cost well into the billions.

Here’s an approximate calculation. If 1.5 million California students are non-English speakers, one-third are likely legal immigrants, one-third are the American citizen anchor baby children born in the U.S., and one-third are illegal immigrants. Using a low range $7,500 as the cost to educate one K-12 student annually, the state funded cost for illegal immigrants is nearly $4 billion.

If you assume that all of California’s K-12, 1.5 non-English speakers are the direct result of a liberal federal immigration policy, then the aggregate yearly outlay soars to nearly $11 billion.

Since Washington, D.C. refuses to enforce immigration law, the states are left to underwrite the costs aliens generate. Education is the largest unfunded federal mandate.

Nationwide, English language learners are the fastest growing student group. Since 1996, the percentage of English learners has increased across America by 60 percent with some states like Virginia, Colorado and Arizona experiencing a 200 percent growth.

While California appears unwilling to come to terms with illegal immigrant education costs, Arizona and New York have taken preliminary steps to limit enrollment to legal residents.

Arizona recently introduced legislation that would require public schools to identify and count students in the state illegally.

The bill, S.B. 1097, would also require the Arizona Department of Education to determine the expense of educating each alien student and to research what it calls his “adverse impact.”

In New York, one in five school districts currently requires parents to either provide immigration documents that prove legal status or requests social security or unexpired resident alien cards that only lawful applicants could provide.

New York seemingly defies the three-decade old Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe that immigration status cannot be used as a prerequisite to K-12 enrollment.

Whether New York schools’ request for residency proof is an administrative oversight, as some districts claim, or is a reaction to the costs of schooling nearly 1 million foreign-born K-12 students in the midst of a $9 billion deficit is unclear.

What’s certain is that an analysis of the cost to educate illegal immigrants is completely appropriate and, in this era of deepening deficits, a fundamental business decision.

Once states learn their costs, then they can make a measured, fact-based conclusion on whether they can afford to educate illegal immigrants.

Here’s a snapshot of American education.

States have no money to retain experienced teachers, let alone hire new ones to handle the student overflow. As a result, if your child is in an overcrowded classroom, his chances for a quality education are drastically reduced.

Ten years from now, K-12 student enrollment will be higher than it is today. Until enrollment stabilizes through stricter immigration enforcement, classroom conditions will worsen.

In the meantime, the philosophy that America can educate the world without sacrificing its own children in the process stands exposed as wishful thinking.
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Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns—mostly about immigration and related social issues – since 1990. He is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and his columns have frequently been syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. He can be reached at [email protected].