Lack of English skills handcuffs immigrants

This story gives statistics about immigrants and their opportunities related to their knowledge of English. There are long waiting lists for ESL classes. DP

ESL funding, space hard to come by

By Lisa Eckelbecker, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Telegram.com: WORCESTER— English language skills mark a new economic dividing line between immigrants, but organizations are straining to find enough money and space to expand English classes for foreign-born people living in Central Massachusetts, community leaders said yesterday.

As many as 4,000 to 5,000 immigrants in Worcester may be on waiting lists for English as a Second Language classes, even as hundreds more cram into courses at community centers and colleges, local officials said at a presentation at the Beechwood Hotel on “The Changing Face of Massachusetts” by MassINC, a Boston-based think tank.

“We have to eliminate these waiting lists for ESL to make any dent in this issue,” said Donald H. Anderson, director of Workforce Central Career Center, which has three employment centers in the region.

The dividing line between immigrants who speak and read English and those who do not matters, because native-born residents have been leaving the state and immigrants compose a growing part of the Massachusetts population and economy.

By 2004, immigrants represented 14.3 percent of the state population, up from 9.5 percent in 1990, according to MassINC. Sometime before the end of this year, the number of immigrants in the state should hit 1 million, said MassINC Research Director Dana Ansel.

“This we haven’t seen since the early 1900s,” she said.
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