According to this Herald Bulletin article, the recent increases in diversity experienced by Indianapolis are rapidly spreading to the suburbs, creating new and costly challenges for educators.
Across the state of Indiana, the number of ELL students quadrupled over the last decade to nearly 50,000. That’s a fraction of the state’s 1.1 million K-12 students. But it’s a segment with high need: Teemant, who administers a federal grant aimed at accelerating the number of ELL teachers in Indiana, said the ratio of certified ELL teachers is about 1 to 150 students in need.
“The demand is expanding much more rapidly than school districts’ ability to keep up,” Teemant said.
The piece notes that Teemant’s efforts have specifically expanded to the western suburban community of Avon, where the number of students whose first language is not English is nearly 150% what is was just 4 years ago. As a matter of fact, the latest census figures show that Hendricks County, where Avon is located, experienced a 277% growth in Hispanic population between 2000 and 2010.
And what happens when you have surges in immigration from a particular group? They don’t assimilate, as one Indiana official points out:
The fast rise in the Hispanic population, due to immigration and higher fertility rates among Hispanics, has brought a host of challenges. Daniel Lopez, head of the Indiana Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs, said an estimated 24 percent of Hispanics in Indiana are “linguistically isolated” — unable to speak English.
Among the problems that has posed: In Indiana counties where there there are no Spanish-speaking emergency dispatchers, some 911 calls are ending in frustration and no help. “The people are here,” Lopez said of the Hispanic immigrants who accounted for 43 percent of Indiana’s total population growth in the last decade. “But the infrastructure isn’t in place.”
Actually, the infrastructure is in place…in the language of our country. The language that people who we allow to come here are supposed to learn. Don’t even get me started on people who come here without our permission.
But the article then takes an even sharper turn into conflation. You will remember that we’ve allegedly been looking at immigration in general, but so far we’ve been focused on Hispanics, and the “necessity” for local school systems to come up with and spend ever increasing amounts of money to teach English to Spanish-speaking children.
Enter Governor Mitch Daniels to share why it’s so good for us to have money withdrawn from the fruits of our labor, before we even see a paycheck, to teach Hispanic children to speak English. In 2008 Daniels started the Indiana Mr./Miss Math and Science awards and, since 7 of the 8 recipients are children of immigrants, it must be highly important to spend taxpayers’ hard-earned money on teaching English to Spanish-speaking children, right? Just one problem:
None of the recipients from immigrant families is Hispanic: one is of Arabic heritage and the rest are Asian.
So let me get this straight. It is imperative for us to be flooded with Hispanic immigrants who don’t learn English, and provide their children with extra education (and government services in Spanish), because one student of Arabic heritage and five of Asian heritage earned awards for academic excellence.
But let’s get back to Hendricks County where, as Mr. Lopez noted, Hispanics “are here.” And, evidently, not spending a lot of time pressing 1 for English. Why did the author of this article have to stretch to the state-wide achievements of children from non-Hispanic immigrant families to make the case for the flood of Hispanic immigration? Surely there’s a case to be made from within Hendricks County.
Indeed, there is. Just not the case this article was seeking to make.
Over the preceding 10 years, crime data were available in Hendricks County, Indiana for all 10 years. During that time frame, reported crime in Hendricks County has grown by 55%. During that same interval, violent crime grew by 83%. On the whole, the crime figures reflect a dramatic growth in crime over the last 10 years in Hendricks County.
I don’t need Mitch Daniels to hand me an award to do the math.