The latest data from Maine’s schools shows that test scores are plummeting as schools focus on the children of illegal migrants who are welcomed by the state’s employers and politicians.
The latest numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics finds that Maine public school students are at their lowest test scores in thirty years in both reading and math. The data finds that only 33 percent of children in fourth grade are proficient in math and only 26 percent are fluent in reading. These are also some of the worst scores in the nation. Older children are even worse off, with a mere 25 percent proficient in math and 26 percent in reading. The results placed Maine’s students at 38th in the country.
Maine is spending about $15,000 per student for the 176,000 students in its education system, a cost that is more than one thousand dollars above the national average, according to Ballotpedia.
Meanwhile, Maine has also seen a tidal wave of migrants — mostly illegal — as the Democrat-dominated state continues to tout its sanctuary policies, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The number of children who cannot speak English fluently has soared in the last decade, FAIR says. For instance, 70 percent of students enrolling in Portland’s schools have limited English skills and require special classes to help bring them up to standards in English before they even learn any other subject. This forces schools to spend budget money hiring teachers and other employees who speak a wide variety of languages to try and communicate with these children. FAIR adds that Portland now counts as many as 57 languages being spoken in its classrooms.
It is so bad in Portland that the schools are moving toward requiring all teachers to speak multiple languages, meaning many teachers will be unqualified to teach in the city’s schools.
Education budgets across the country are skyrocketing as the huge wave of the Biden administration’s migrant children were diverted into American primary schools.
Like in Maine, administrators nationwide are shifting budget dollars toward migrant children who have flooded into public schools. For instance, in 2020, Pennsylvania reported 71,766 English Language Learner (ELL) students. By 2024 that number had blown up to 99,889 such students, a 40 percent rise.
Data also seems to show that as American education systems retrench in the struggle to educate migrants, the children are the losers.
Results across the country echo what was reported by the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CASPP), which found migrant students are not doing well. The agency reported that only 24 percent of migrant students meet state standards for English Language Arts (down from 24.2 percent the year prior), a mere 15.8 percent are in line with math skills (up from 14.8 percent), and it is just 11.7 percent for science, which is about flat from 2023.
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