More funds needed to reach immigrant kids, experts say

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 11:24 a.m.

Educators and community leaders have a stern message for Nevada lawmakers: Either pay to properly educate immigrant children now or face a steeper and more painful price later.

"We're looking at a future of more school dropouts, more children being born out of wedlock, more homelessness and more people lacking the basic skills to survive without public assistance," said Mike Martinez, a Utah attorney active in Hispanic affairs nationally. "It's a lot cheaper to educate than it is to reform."

Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed budget included some boosts to public education but no extra aid for the state's fastest-growing student group -- non-native English language speakers.

Some educators, while loath to criticize Guinn's omission given the state's looming $700 million deficit, say they are already stretched to the breaking point.

"So much of what we're doing now is playing catch-up," Clark County School Superintendent Carlos Garcia said. "We're asking the state for hundreds of millions of dollars to fix things that would have cost a fraction of that to do right the first time around 10 or 20 years ago."

Federal census figures indicate Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the largest minority group in the United States. By 2040 demographers predict half of the nation's population will be Hispanic or of Hispanic descent, Martinez said.

Many Hispanics living in the United States, particularly those in Western states, still identify with the country of their birth, Martinez said. It will be their children who see themselves as Americans entitled to the same benefits and opportunities as other residents, Martinez said.

"When the second generation realizes they don't have the education to move up the socio-economic ladder, that's when an undercurrent of anger develops," Martinez said. "And because we haven't been providing education, they also won't have teachers, doctors, lawyers or ministers to turn to for leadership."

Hispanics account for 30 percent of Clark County's pupils and 87 percent of the district's ELL students. More Hispanics drop out of Clark County schools than any other ethnic group and fewer Hispanic students go on to college, according to district records.

But the crisis in Hispanic education is not limited to Clark County. It is a national crisis. That's why the No Child Left Behind Act contains several provisions aimed at boosting academic achievement by Hispanic students. But the federal act, now starting its second year, also places tougher demands on schools to produce those results.

Under the new, more stringent requirements, poor academic performance by ELL students could soon have an effect on an entire school, said Mary Sue Morin, consultant for the state education department.

Under the federal requirements, schools will be sanctioned if they don't show adequate yearly progress by all students, including the ELL and special education subgroups. Two years of poor performance by a school requires districts to offer transfers to a better campus for any student who demands it.

As students transfer, surrounding schools will likely be overwhelmed and post lower scores on the next round of tests, continuing the cycle, Morin said.

"We're going to see 50, 60 schools on the 'needs improvement' list, instead of the 12 we have right now," Morin predicted. "It's going to be a domino effect, something that could have been avoided by appropriately funding intervention programs and educational services to begin with."

The Clark County ELL program has showed strong gains, particularly in the lower grades. Former ELL students out-scored their native English-speaking peers in the latest round of proficiency exams, demonstrating the benefits of being bilingual, Morin said.

"Learning two languages requires discipline, memorization and just being an overall good student," Morin said. "These students are eager to learn and in many cases are going two steps beyond what's required of their English-only counterparts."

Guinn's proposal calls for a salary increase for teachers in fields with the biggest shortages, including English as a Second Language and mathematics, but there are no specific provisions for the students.

With a budget of $11 million a year to serve more than 45,000 students, educators struggle to keep up with the increasing need, said Melba Madrid-Parra, director of the Clark County School District's ELL program.

"We need more money for teacher training. We need more money for tutoring programs and we need more money to recruit and keep teachers with experience working with ELL and bilingual students," Madrid-Parra said. "A lot of our teachers want to reach these kids, but they don't know how, and that can be very frustrating for everyone."

The district also faces the increasing cost of failing to reach ELL students early on. Students who drop out of mainstream schools often return to attend alternative programs, which are the most expensive to operate after special education, said Gloria Sizemore, director of the district's budget department.

"Certainly we would love to catch all of the kids the first time around," Sizemore said. "When we don't, that's when we see the increased cost of specialized programs."

Given the state's deficit the governor had to make "tough choices" about which education initiatives to include, said Keith Rheault, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Nevada Education Department.

Both the Nevada Board of Education and a coalition of the state's 17 school district superintendents supported proposals for full-day kindergartens for at-risk schools, a plan Guinn has backed. Both groups also had recommendations for additional bilingual services and programs statewide, Rheault said.

"We didn't go to the governor and tell him we favored one over the other or ask him to pick kindergarten over bilingual programs," Rheault said. "We see all of these proposals as vital to the future of education in Nevada, but we were also realistic going into it that there would be some trade-offs."

Public schools are obligated to educate every student who enrolls, regardless of the cost, said Edward Goldman, superintendent of the Clark County School District's southeast region.

"The state has got to provide not only for the growth, but for the types of students we're having to educate," Goldman said. "If they're giving us $5,000 per pupil and it costs $10,000 to educate an ELL student, that extra $5,000 has to come from somewhere in our budget, and it's often at the expense of the other students. That's simply not fair."

The $879 million iNVest plan, authored by the state's 17 school superintendents, calls for $77 million in additional funding for ELL programs. While Guinn included versions of five of the iNVest plan's proposals, the ELL component was not one of them.

Clark County officials said they will continue to focus on the rising costs of ELL students when the Legislature reconvenes next month.

Garcia said that while he too was surprised ELL students didn't make Guinn's cut, he never expected all of iNVest's proposals to win support the first time around.

"What's exciting is the governor is looking at long-term solutions, not just a Band-Aid approach," Garcia said.