U.S. Audit Raps Oklahoma on Migrant-Student Eligibility

An audit of three Oklahoma school districts has found that 98 percent of the children the districts counted as participants in the federal migrant education program during the 2003-04 school year didn’t meet eligibility requirements.

In a March 21 report, the office of the U.S. Department of Education’s inspector general said that 121 children in a sample of 124 migrant children in the Guymon, Clinton, and Poteau districts didn’t meet the program’s criteria. The audit estimated that the state inappropriately spent $509,000 in federal money in the three districts, and it recommended that the money be returned to the federal government.

“Because the migrant count in those districts was overstated, the [Education] Department has no assurance that other Oklahoma districts accurately counted migratory children for the 2003-04 [school year] migrant children count,”...