criteria of cli crsih and “faiuilv rcvinificatiori” first hccanic manifest,rnthe scenario is far different. According to deniograplierrnMeredith Burke, “ininiigrants after 1970 and their descendantsrnaccount lor three quarters of current American populationrngrow til” and will account for “90 percent of the grow th betw eenrn2t)00 and 20s()-and all of dre growth after 20?(J.” Mo-e Hiernstarting line, and die numbers change.rnhe same thing occurs when the impact of immigration on T’rnX education is examined. U.S. Secretary of EducationrnRichard Rile announced an enrollment crisis in American edncahonrnin a special report entitled The Baby Boom Echo, releasedrnon August 21, 1996: “Twent)-five years after the babyrnboom generation set a national record for school enrollment. . .rnit i,s fitting that the children of Hie babv boomers are doing thernrecord breaking.”rnThe problem with the report’s tide and conclusion is that thernrecent large and rapid increases in the school population arernnot primarily the result of children born to baby boomers; Riley’srnattribution is disingenuous. The baby boomers have below-rnrcplacement level fertility; they are not reproducing themselves.rnLinda H. Thoni, a retired statistician from the Santa Barbararn(CA) Counb,’ Administrator’s office, attacks die Education Department’srnreport with the department’s own data—which canrnbe foiuid in the report itself or in the Digest of EducationalrnStatistics. Analvzing enrollment trends betveen 197’5 andrn1990, Thorn finds that “nationally, average daily attendancern(ADA), excluding California, dechned bv 5,542,207 students.rnIn California, however, ADA increased b’ 699,030. Large enrollmentrngains were also experienced in Florida and Texas.”rnThese three border states lead the list of immigrant destinationsrnin the United States. In California, the major immigrantrndestination, cormty-by-county comparisons of the school-agernpopulation show that the children of immigrants and childrenrnwho have themselves immigrated account for the higher enrollmentrnnumbers.rnThe increase in child poverty is a related issue. Secretary Rileyrnstates that nian’ more of America’s young people live inrnpovert}’ now than three decades ago: “In 1970, near the peak ofrnthe last [school] enrollment high, the number of young peoplernliving in poverty barely exceeded lOmillion. In 1995,the numberrnof voung people who were struggling reached 15.7 million.”rnRiley otters no useful explanation of what caused this increase.rnHowever, Thom suggests, “If immigration caused the enrollmentrnincrease, then immigration caused the poverty increase.”rnDuring the 1980’s, California, Texas, and Florida accountedrnfor 98 percent of the increased caseload in the Aid to Familiesrnwith Dependent Children program. The U.S. General AccountingrnOffice reports that, for that same decade, “the totalrnnumber of school children declined by 23 million,” and thernnumber of white and black school-age children also declined.rnBut the number of poor students increased. Thom concludes:rn”Hispanic and Asian/Pacific children accounted for all of thernadded poor, school-age children.”rnEducational achievement often reflects parental educationrnand values. Unfortunately, Mexican and Central American immigrantsrnaverage less than an eighth-grade education. Mexicornand Central America are not only the source of the largest annualrnimmigrant flows into California and the United States inrngeneral; Hispanic women now account for approximately 18rnpercent of all births, up from 14 percent in 1989. Mexican,rnCentral, and Soutli American women (not Culiau) account forrnmost of this increase.rnThese facts are never mentioned in connection witli thernprol^lems of popidation growth —oercn)wding, budget deficitsrnin local governments, environmental stress — that troublernAmericans. Child povertv, bloated school budgets, and a poor-rnIv educated, unskilled labor force have multiple components,rnbut a common denominator appears to be the ver high level ofrnimmigrafion into tiie United States.rnMan statistical reports require a second look. The NationalrnCenter for Health Statistics, in reporting on illegitimacy rates,rnplavs with die categories “white, black, and Hispanic” in a wayrnthat seems to inflate the rates for whites and blacks in comparisonrnwitii Hispariics.rnThe illegitimac}- statistics are not an isolated instance of creativernreporting. FBI crime .statistics report the eflinic group ofrnvictims and perpetrators, but they do so differenfly. Victims arernclassified “black, white, Hispanic or other”; but the perpetratorrnclassification drops “Hispanic.” Under the system in place atrnleast as late as 1999, an assardt on an Hispanic hy an Hispanic isrnreported as either blaek-on-Hispanic or white-on-Hispanicrncrime. Most Hispanics are classified as “white.” Clearly, this isrnan irresponsible irritant to race relations.rnSimilar errors are found in a range of publications. Workforcern2000, released in 1987 by the Hudson Institute, includes arnparticularly grievous error. The report’s executive summarv’ announcedrnthat onlv 1 5 percent of the entrants into the workforcernduring the 1 -5 v ears leading up to the year 2000 w ould be whiternmales. The alarm was raised in every newsroom and every Fortunern500 boardroom in the United States.rnThe correct datum, however, is that white males were expectedrnto be 3 J percent of all entrants into the labor force, withrn15 percent more entering than retiring by the year 2000. Thernerror crept in through omission of the word “net” from the executivernsummarv’. In effect, net new skilled jobs had to grow bvrn15 percent just to keep pace with the job needs of young whiternAmerican men, to sav’ nothing of minorities and women.rnRichard C. Atkinson, chancellor of the Universitv of California-rnSan Diego, exposed the error in a letter to flie editor that aj)-rnpeared in Science shortly after the publication of Workforcern2000. But for approximately one year, no mass news mediarnbroke —or perhaps even knew—the complete ston’.rnThe erroneous report and the near-panic reaction in somernquarters helped create momentum for the 1990 legislation thatrnraised legal immigrant (green card) visas by 40 percent. Hl-Brnvisas for skilled workers were added without an offsetting reductionrnin other visa categories. Indeed, almost everv’ visa categoryrnwas enlarged.rnThree weeks after Congress increased legal immigrationrnvisas, a sidebar in the November 19, 1990, issue of U.S. Newsrnand World Report exposed Workforce 2000’s mistake. Were thernerror and the lack of timely corrections the work of gremlins!’rnDistortions also characterized the initial press release andrncertain editorial comments regarding the National ResearchrnCouncil study of immigration, The New Americans (1997).rnSen. Spencer Abraham and the chair of the NRC study panelrnco-authored a piece for the New York Times that provoked NRC!rnpanelists George J. Borjas and Richard B. Freeman to respondrnwith an article titled “Findings We Never Found.” Outraged atrnvarious misrepresentations. Harvard economists Borjas anilrnFreeman objected that certain public figures, specifically SenatorrnAbraham and Rand Corporation economist James P. Smith,rnOrnornHHrnarn1-3rn1 ^rn>rnAUGUST 2000. J 1rnrnrn