Bilingual children are "highcost" children. Because of their limited Englishspeaking ability. and their inability to read ordinary textbooks or other instructional materials. it costs on the average about $400 additional per child to provide adequate education for such children. This means that the real cost per child for these refugee children will be a total of about $1.700 per child. for this coming school year. If the estimate from HEW is correct. and a half of the 113.000 refugees are of school age. this means that the total expense to be paid by State and local education agencies in educating the refugee children will be $96 million for this coming school year56.500 children times $1.700and we do not know how long this will continue. To require local educational agencies to furnish this service without remuneration adds an intolerable burden to that part of our governmental system which is least able to bear it. The public schools are laboring under extreme financial difficulties. In the State of California. for example. the School Boards Association recently completed a survey which showed that 213 school districts. representing about 60 percent of the education expenditures in the State as a whole. reported that they will be $221 million short of being able to meet the impact of inflation on their operating budgets. CxxI906--Part 11 Many other States can cite equally discouraging figures. In the case of the State of California. assume that we will receive only 10 percent of the refugees and therefore 5.650 children to be educateda figure which I am sure is very low. But if you then take our State average perpupil expenditure as adjusted for inflation. which amounts to about $1.400 per child for this coming year. the taxpayers of our State will have to pay $7.9 million to educate refugee children. But then if you add the highcost factor of $400 per child. the total bill will be about $10.17 million for our State alone. Mr.
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