Believe In America.com

butterbean · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 2271

Arizona taxpayers spend up to $1.2 billion annually to educate children of illegal immigrants

Children chat in Spanish between classes at Mesa’s Lindbergh Elementary School, and signs are posted in English and Spanish so parents can navigate the campus.

Fewer than 10 percent of Lindbergh students were Hispanic in 1980. Today, the figure has swelled to more than 75 percent.

But Jennifer Kill, a sixth-grade teacher at the school, said she has never asked if any of these students are illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants. Her job is to teach children, not to guard the border.

“As a teacher, you get the students that come to your door,” Kill said. “You don’t concern yourself with where they’re from, what they look like.”

People who do track immigration trends estimate that 125,000 to 145,000 children of illegal immigrants attend public elementary and secondary schools in Arizona.

That figure comes from the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., which is quick to point out that about half of these students are likely U.S. citizens born in this country.

The Pew estimate nearly equals the enrollment of the Scottsdale, Mesa and Chandler unified school districts combined.

More than one in nine Arizona students is an illegal immigrant or the child of an illegal immigrant, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

To educate these children, school finance experts in Arizona suggest taxpayers will spend as much as $1.2 billion this year alone.

TEACHERS IN THE MIDDLE

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http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/84115