June Kronholz reports on immigration.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=301
The Wall Street Journal
The cost of teaching English to 12 million legal and illegal adult immigrants now in the U.S. would approach $3 billion a year, says the Migration Policy Institute in a new report that’s likely to add fuel to an immigration fight that seemed to have cooled lately.
The Washington-based nonpartisan think tank said that bringing the 5.8 million legal immigrants to a level of English proficiency that would enable them to get involved in civic life would cost $200 million a year for six years. That would be in addition to the $1 billion currently spent by the federal and state governments on English-language classes for adults.
The bigger expense, by far, would involve teaching English to about 6.4 million currently illegal immigrant adults if Congress should pass a broad legalization program, like one that failed in the Senate this summer. That bill would have required immigrants to learn English as one step toward earning legal status.Were that to pass, the Migration Policy Institute said English-language costs would increase by $2.9 billion a year for six years. It calculated that illegal immigrants would need 319 million hours of English classes a year, or about 660 hours each over six years.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/08/01/tab-for-teaching-english-put-at-3-billion/