Group Says State Should Do More for Immigrant Children
Monday, July 12, 2010
As the number of immigrants to Rhode Island goes up, the state needs to do more to help their children get access to health care and bilingual educational programs, according to a children’s advocacy group.
Between 2000 and 2008, the number of immigrants to the Ocean State went up by 8 percent. The increase occurred even though Rhode Island dropped in the rankings of the states with the most immigrants over the same period, from 12th to 15th, according to a new study by Rhode Island Kids Count, which used the most recently available data from the U.S. Census.
Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Kids Count, said the data gives the public and policymakers some context for understanding the recommendations that they make.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIn particular, Burke Bryant noted that while children who are undocumented immigrants have a legal right to attend public school—they are not getting the same health care benefits as other children in the state.
She said Kids Count is urging the state to restore access to RIte Care health insurance for those undocumented children. “We think it’s more cost effective in the long term to provide preventive care and prevent conditions from worsening,” Burke Bryant told GoLocalProv.
Immigrant Children Need More Support
Much of the study focuses on children 18 years or younger in immigrant families—defined as a family where either the child or the parent was not born in the United States, regardless of their citizenship status. About 24 percent of the children in Rhode Island fall into this category, according to Burke Bryant.
For these children, she said the state needs to expand access to pre-school programs and increase the number of programs that teach English as a second language. She that said will close the achievement gap between immigrant children and others as early as kindergarten—again, saving more money in the long run.
And, for older children, she called on the state Department of Education, or RIDE, to establish uniform standards for the curriculum in English as a Second Language programs at schools across the state. She also said RIDE needs to develop a statewide system for tracking how long students have to spend in ESL programs before they move on to regular classes.
Education Commissioner Deborah Gist said her department supports the recommendations of Kids Count.
“RIDE is committed to supporting all our schools in the development and expansion of evidence-based models for delivering quality bilingual, ESL, and ELL programs,” Gist told GoLocalProv. “We also support (the idea) that schools can be an influential point of contact between families and the social and human service network that can address needs and support success.”
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