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State Stix 'Uno' language Immigration policy has become a controversial topic in political campaigns. Republican presidential candidate U. S. Sen. Bob Dole has urged that English be adopted as the official national language, a suggestion endorsed by Illinois Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra, a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate. Illinois is already one of 22 states that have adopted English as the official state language. More than 112 languages are spoken by students in Illinois public schools, and 88 percent of those languages are represented in Chicago. According to the Illinois State Board of Education, Spanish is the leading foreign language in schools (82, 049 students in the 1994- 1995 school year) followed by Polish (6, 652), Arabic (1, 709), the Hindi language Urdu (1, 521) and Korean (1, 406).
According to the state board, the number of students and the state appropriations for bilingual education programs
have risen significantly in recent years.
However, state expenditures for down-
state have not kept pace with the increase
in programs, due to the state's distribution formula. (All information in the
graphs was provided by the state board.)
Figure 1. Illinois public school bilingual census, 1985-1995
Figure 2. State appropriations for bilingual education, 1985-1995
Figure 3. Distribution of funds for downstate bilingual students, 1986-1994 30 / November 1995 / Illinois Issues
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