New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) representatives believe that the funds for ESL programs in the New York State budget are insufficient.
“We need more help than regular students do,” said an attendee of the NYIC conference, which took place on February 1 at the Manhattan Comprehensive Night &Day High School, addressing the message to Governor Spitzer.
“It often happens that teachers are able to help us in a specific subject area, but they cannot help us language-wise,” said a Pakistani student.
Representatives of several immigrant parents organizations agreed. They pointed to the fact that in Spitzer’s budget proposal funds for ESL programs for their children have been combined with funds for other educational purposes; in earlier ESL budgets it was a separate line item.
“We are worried that the money will go where it shouldn’t be, instead of being spent on programs for those learning English,” said Jose Davila of NYIC.
Even now, as the report prepared by NYIC indicates that only one-third of the New York schools ensures appropriate ESL programs for immigrant children. There are also cases where schools that are given funds for ESL programs, never use them.
“We are appealing to Governor Spitzer for an increase in funds for ESL classes for children of immigrants, as well as implementation of a monitoring system to control how this money is really spent,” said Davila.
The leaders of pro-immigrant organizations say that children of immigrant parents, who make up about 10 percent of all students in the New York State, work twice as hard as American children. They have to study particular subjects while learning English, the language in which these subjects are taught. Because of the many difficulties they encounter, as many as 50 percent of these children never graduate from high schools.
One of Spitzer’s proposals also allows for a tax break of $1,000 per child annually, to families whose children attend private schools (from kindergarten through twelfth grade) and who have an annual income lower than $16,000. For each additional $1,000 in income, the tax break would decrease by $100.
Similar proposals appeared in the past, but they were opposed by Democrats in the House of Representatives, who don’t want private education to be subsidized with public money.
