Public schools will many times accept them without papers until 6th grade. There are a few exceptions of public high schools accepting them, but getting a title is difficult without a birth certificate.
The problem is that many are offspring of parents who have no legal identity whatsoever. In the case of the Haitians, the parents need to register first with the Haitian consulate and then they can register their children. But they first need their own identity. Then even if they are illegal, they would be accepted because they have at least an identity, a birth document issued by the Haitian consulate.
The lack of papers is a true national tragedy and also affects the children of thousands of Dominicans who were not registered by their parents. There are innumerable people that don't exist here. This so because while tax payers have paid for multiple programs to enact issuing birth certificates at public hospitals, this has not happened and the system whereby the father has to go and register the child within a 30 day period, or else they have to go through very cumbersome bureaucracy, continues. The issuing of the birth certificates at the hospitals would put an end at least to the identity-less children of Dominican parents. The matter was much debated when the Central Electoral Board (JCE) was pushing for a multimillion dollar program to purchase expensive equipment for implement electronic voting in the country. Voices urged that the money instead be spent to put the civil registry system to work for the people instead.