"Feds, Wilson dispute illegal immigrant costs", 15 Sept 1994, SF 
      Examiner, p. A-4.

"Illegal aliens put uneven load on states, study says", 15 Sept 1994, 
      NYT, P. A8.  

"Illegal immigration:  Impact on California", Office of Governor Pete 
      Wilson, press packet, 1994.

"Fiscal impacts of undocumented aliens:  selected estimates for seven 
      states", Urban Institute,  1994.

1.  The newspaper articles describe two studies that give quite different 
    conclusions about the costs of immigration in California.  Briefly 
    summarize the estimates from the Governor of California and the Urban 
    Institute.  

2.  The two reports are long.  We will focus on the costs of educating 
    illegal immigrants in the California public schools.  We  have included 
    compressed versions of the two reports here.  For each of the two 
    studies, answer the following question:

    How many illegal immigrant children are estimated to be in the 
    California public schools?  On what information is this estimate 
    based?  

3.  Explain why the two reports give such different answers for the 
    number of illegal immigrant children in school.  Which numbers do you 
    believe more?  Why?

4.  Explain why the two reports give slightly different values for 
    per-student expenditures.

5.  Does either newspaper article give an accurate description of why the 
    studies give different estimates for the cost of educating illegal 
    immigrant children in California?

6.  Discuss the difficulties of writing a newspaper article about an 
    economic analysis, as compared to a survey, experiment, or 
    observational study.