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Letters 96 April 12, 1996 Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan Dear Senator Moynihan: On behalf of the Educational Priorities Panel, we are writing to strongly urge that you vote against two amendments to the Immigration Reform Bill (S.269) which will have devastating affects on children, dramatically decrease parent participation in some schools serving largely immigrant neighborhoods, reduce English language acquisition, and, potentially, rapidly increase public education costs in New York City. • Senator Shelby's amendment would establish English as the official language of the United States and prohibit the distribution of literature by any government agency in any other language with only a few exceptions, most notably for bilingual education, foreign language courses, and court proceedings. In many community school districts and high schools in New York City, notices to parents are printed in two or more languages so that parents are kept informed of the progress of their children's education and are made to feel welcome at school events. Though there is still significant room for improvement by New York City schools in attracting the participation of immigrant parents in programs to help their children learn reading and do homework, public schools still play an important role in encouraging parents to learn English. Cutting off communication with immigrant parents is a wrong-headed strategy. In addition, requiring that election ballots be in English only would disenfranchise a significant portion of parent voters in school board elections. We also note that if English-language acquisition is the desired goal of this legislation, the absence of any funding for after-school English language courses is striking. In New York City, there are two-year waiting lists for these courses. • Senator Helm's amendment would allow states to bar undocumented children from public school. Though the exact size of New York City's undocumented immigrant population is unknowable, the potential of thousands of children without education and without supervision during the week day or engaged in child labor would probably mean that New York State would not opt for this harsh measure. This would mean that New York State would be an even more attractive destination point for undocumented immigrants with children. On the other hand, should New York State opt for excluding undocumented children from public schools, the administrative tasks of reviewing documents for all new entrants would mean increased costs. Since children born in the United States are citizens, in many families only older siblings would be ineligible for education. Yet, it is usually these older children (the first to be exposed to English language in the public schools) that have traditionally served as translators for their families and have forged the path for the families' transition to English. The exclusion of undocumented children from public schools will decrease English language acquisition. The Educational Priorities Panel is a twenty-year old coalition of civic, religious, and education groups that work together to monitor the impact of budget and administrative decisions on public schools students in New York City. As such, our organizational members have diverse positions on immigration issues, but we are very concerned about the negative impact of these two amendments on children, on the day-to-day operation of schools, and on the rates of English-language acquisition of the immigrant population of New York City. 17% of our city's public school student population come from families who do not speak English in the home. EPP reports from 1985 to the present have fully documented that the public school system's failure to serve language-minority students has depressed student academic achievement levels in New York City. Yet, despite these criticisms, we could have never envisioned legislation in the United States Senate that would return our schools to the policies of a century ago, to a time when Italian-Americans, in particular, were excluded from the full benefits of public education by English-only practices and requirements for documentation. Even up to the 1950's, the drop out rate for New York City was 50% of all high school students, with a majority of dropouts coming from this language-minority community. Must we repeat the failed policies of the last century? The problem of undocumented immigration will be not be solved by making schools less able to serve immigrant families and less able to introduce them to the English language. In closing, we urge you to do every thing possible to prevent these amendments or similar legislation from passing the Senate and to reject all compromise measures as well. Punishing the children of undocumented immigrants because the federal government has failed in its enforcement functions and cutting off communications to language-minority parents are the wrong responses to the problems that the immigration bill seeks to address. Sincerely, |
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