Overcrowded Classrooms

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters51f8) provides the following statistics: The U.S. school-aged population has reached an all-time high of 55 million. Between 1990 and 2000, enrollment increased by 14 percent. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the size of the student body will almost double by 2100. Yet without school-age immigrants (about 250,000 a year) and the children of immigrants (about 725,000 a year), school enrollment would not be rising at all. Today, one in five students has at least one foreign-born parent. In California, almost half of the students starting school are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Overcrowding in schools across the nation has become a major concern for many students, parents, principals and teachers. Schools have exceeded their capacity in order to accommodate large population growth. Portable classrooms and temporary instructional spaces like cafeterias and gyms are common ways managing overcrowded classrooms. These spaces are not preferable learning environments. Money is spent on building more schools rather than being used to improve the quality of education for current students. Illegal immigrants pose challenges to school systems struggling to raise academic achievement levels sometimes in order to receive more funding. Most illegal immigrants do not speak English which creates great difficulty for teachers and other students in the classroom. Special programs like ESL have to be funded to assist immigrants learning and communication skills.
Illegal immigration hinders the government’s ability to provide high quality education. The large numbers of children of illegal immigrants crowd classrooms and impede learning.