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Statement by
Delia Pompa
Director
Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs
on
Fiscal Year 1998 Request for
Bilingual and Immigrant Education
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I am pleased to appear before the Committee today to testify on the fiscal year 1998 budget request for Bilingual and Immigrant Education.
Bilingual programs help school districts develop high-quality programs to teach English to limited English proficient students and help them meet high State academic standards.
The population served by this program has grown dramatically over the past decade, and these students are now enrolled in many school districts that have had no prior experience in serving them. According to State educational agencies, between 1990-91 and 1994-95, the number of limited English proficient students population grew by at least 46 percent. Even though three States -- California, New York, and Texas -- continue to enroll the majority of these students, States such as Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Washington registered significant increases in their enrollments of limited English proficient students since 1992. For the 1994-95 school year, States and the District of Columbia reported a total of 3 million limited English proficient students.
Census data suggest that the programs we fund are effective in teaching English. While the number of children who speak a language other than English at home grew by 1.8 million during the past decade, most of the increase was among those children who speak English very well. In fact, the Census data indicate that of those children who speak a language other than English at home, a higher percentage spoke English very well in 1990 than in 1980.
The Foreign Language Assistance program assists States and local educational agencies in implementing high-quality foreign language instructional programs, particularly at the elementary level.
The Immigrant Education program helps school districts that must serve large numbers of recently arrived immigrant students. These funds are typically used by the school district to provide instructional services to new immigrants and other limited English proficient students.
For Instructional Services, our request is $18.3 million more than the final 1997 amount. This increase would cover 94 additional projects serving an estimated 340,000 more students than in 1997. This increase helps keep pace with the rapid growth in the number of limited English proficient students.
For Support Services, our request is $14 million, which is $4 million more than the final 1997 amount. The request provides funding needed to make continuation grants to 47 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the outlying territories to enable them to work with schools to improve the quality of bilingual programs. We are also requesting funds for the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education to make data available to practitioners on effective bilingual services and for 8 Academic Excellence grants to disseminate information on instructional and professional development models that are validated by a State review process. Finally, we are requesting funds for studies and evaluations needed to chart progress towards the performance goals we are establishing for this program pursuant to Government Performance and Results Act. We expect to share a draft copy of those indicators with the subcommittee within a few weeks.
The $25 million requested for Professional Development would fund 114 preservice and inservice projects at colleges and universities and almost 300 fellowship awards. A recent study showed that schools have great difficulty in finding appropriately trained staff. Another recent study showed that our professional development programs are extremely effective in preparing teachers to teach in bilingual classrooms; this study found that 77 percent of the participants in the program subsequently obtained employment in bilingual education
The $150 million requested for Immigrant Education represents a fifty percent increase compared to 1997 for grants to school districts that enroll large numbers of recently arrived immigrant students. The request reflects recent studies that demonstrate the magnitude of the burden of providing public education to immigrant students, particularly in some of the most populous States. We propose to continue appropriations language permitting States to allocate all or part of the funds on a discretionary rather than a formula basis. This language provides the flexibility to channel funds to those districts most in need of assistance and in amounts that will make a difference.
My colleagues and I will be happy to respond to any questions you have regarding the 1998 budget request for the Bilingual and Immigrant Education programs.
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