Since Linda stole all the points I was going to make on this, I'll just add two
thoughts.
#1. Jim has been voicing this $24 million exaggeration for years. He comes up
with an estimate of how many illegal immigrants he thinks are in Framingham,
multiplies it by the per pupil expenditures, and puts that out as the cost of
illegal immigration. It is ,at best, an unrealistic way to think about the
issue. The central issue, as Linda alluded to, is housing. If every illegal
immigrant's child disappeared, the homes and apartments they live in would not
be empty. They'd be filled by other families who would have.....children. And
those children would go to our schools and we would need to have teachers for
them. Swapping who the children are in terms of first, second, third, or 9th
generation makes little difference to the cost of schools in the context of the
whole budget. Even the costs we do have for sheltered english classes,
translations, etc. would be partially offset by the need for more "regular"
teachers unless we want to encourage rows of uninhabited houses and empty
apartments.
#2. One of the goals of school is to prepare our children for the world they
will enter. In our case, the US of 2020 or 2030 is becoming far more diverse
than the one we grew up in. As the group of people who will one day have to
solve a lot of problems, I am glad that Framingham students do not need a "book
group" or a speaker to learn about someone who is of a different race,
ethnicity, socio-economic status, or perhaps even immigration status. They
live, play, study, and work together, and get to know each other just as other
human beings. Hooray for Framingham and hooray for them--if only adults could
display the same capacity.
Adam Blumer
Let's not pretend that cutting CDBG funding for the Adult ESL program is going
to have a significant impact on the immigrant population in Framingham or on
school costs, for that matter. Most of the Adult ESL program is funded through
sources other than the CDBG grant, which funds about 2 classes. (Simple math:
a class is about $10,000).
"Because of this lack of oversight we are paying over 24 million dollars a
year to educated the children of illegals in Framingham. If there were no
enticements like ESL we wouldn't have that huge cost."--Jim Rizoli
As Ned's analysis pointed out, the $24 million number estimate of the
additional cost of providing educational services is as inflated as it could
possibly be. It assumes all students in the ELL program are illegal, and that
all additional costs that are greater than Natick's are created by the need to
service English Language Learners. Talk about a skewed set of assumptions.
I know one reason Natick's costs are so much lower that Framingham's, one that
actually happens to have some evidence to support it instead of made-up
numbers.
Natick's average teacher salary is much lower than Framingham's. Here is the
summary of the differences for the past 6 years:
2007: $7850
2008: $5502
2009: $8311
2010: $8597
2011: $7583
2012: $6140
Pretty simple math, I think.
I know a second reason: In 2012, Framingham spent 27% of its budget on special
education, and Natick spent only 21.6% of its budget on special education (a
budget that was already less per student due to the lower teacher salary).
More simple math.
Given the affordable housing costs in Framingham, we are likely to continue to
be a destination for all immigrants regardless of their immigration status.
Rest of post
Adam Blumer
Pardon the typos!