WATSONVILLE (California) REGISTER-PAJARONIAN July 8, 2006 Migrant Ed. wins carry-over funds
BY AMY LARSON California Migrant Education has won a battle for $29.3 million in carry-over funds against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
On Feb. 15 of last year, Schwarzenegger vetoed the money given by the state department of Education to the California Department of Migrant Education Program.
Schwarzenegger redirected the funds to his own education project, called “program-improvement” districts, which are areas with underperforming schools.
Two days after the veto, outraged migrant parents teamed up with Watsonville Attorney Luis Alejo from California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., and filed a lawsuit against Schwarzenegger and the state in the San Francisco Superior Court.
“The governor violated state and federal law. The money first had to be passed through a bill in the Assembly and then by the Senate,” said Alejo.
“The governor’s move was very surprising. There has not been one governor in the history of California that tried to take money away from migrant students,” Alejo said. “We did not want future governors to think they could take carry-over money away and put it in other programs.”
Migrant students and parents protested the line-item veto outside the capitol building in August.
“What some people don’t understand is that there are plenty of migrant students in these program-improvement districts, and it’s eventually going to trickle down to them regardless,” said governor’s office spokesman Vince Sollitto.
Every public school in Watsonville has program-improvement status, minus a couple charter schools.
However, a recent report by the Legislative Analyst Office, a bipartisan research agency and advisory, found that 70 percent of migrant students in California do not attend program-improvement schools.
Migrant Ed funds highly specific programs that aim to improve migrant students’ education. These programs include literacy in the home and bringing school dropouts back into the classroom, Alejo said. Their effectiveness has been proven in past years, he said.
Money within the Migrant Ed program has paid for migrant parent advisory councils at local, state and regional levels.
Why do advocates believe migrant students should get special funding?
Many non-migrant students are denied a good education in schools without enough funding for learning materials and credentialed teachers, reflected in their dismally low test scores, advocates say.
“The Legislature recognized that migrant children are faced with challenges that other children do not have to face in California. They are constantly being displaced as parents move with the crop seasons for work,” Alejo said. “This is a severe hardship on kids. They lose friends, teachers and continuity in their educational program.
“Programs were created a long time ago to address these particular needs. Our community benefits from that labor, but it is important to allow their children to prosper. They need education places to overcome obstacles.”
Children of migrant workers tend to move frequently, attend school irregularly and suffer health defects and language handicaps that significantly inhibit their progress in school,” said Maria Medina, president of the Migrant State Parent Advisory Council. “This results in many becoming early school dropouts, poorly prepared for personal growth and fulfillment or economic success or upward social mobility.”
“California and the local economy are highly dependent on migrant workers,” Alejo said. “Watsonville businesses could not prosper without migrant workers. But these families have certain needs.”
Every year there is an influx of migrant workers in Watsonville from April through October to provide labor for picking.
“We recognize that (underperforming schools are) an important issue too, because they are also facing serious challenges, like not making progress under No Child Left Behind,” Alejo said. “But the governor should not try to take it away from other very needy students in another program. The Legislature needs to do its part in providing adequate resources for those most in need.”
There are 320,000 migrant students in California, the majority of which are Latino with limited English-language ability. Out of the 20,000 students in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, 9,000 of them are migrant students. PVUSD receives $200,000 to $500,000 per year from the state Migrant Ed program.
The carry-over funds controversy remained unresolved last year, but the state legislature unanimously voted to return carry-over funds to the Migrant Ed program within the 2006 state budget.
On June 30, in approving the budget, Schwarzenegger gave in to pressure from lawsuits, demonstrations, migrant students and parents confronting him in his office.
Millions of dollars worth in funding were not spent because the fiscal year for the state Migrant Ed program is not in synch with the state budget’s fiscal year. Bureaucracy also creates a backlog in unspent funds.
“Every year funding goes unspent because they need to keep a cushion in the state budget to prevent overspending,” Alejo said. |