Illegal Immigrants and the Educational System

Illegal Immigrants and the Educational System

Secondary education is a highly debated subject. Many critics of secondary education say that inner-city high schools and students are not receiving the same attention as students from non inner-city high schools. Two of the biggest concerns are the lack of school funding that inner-city high schools are receive and the low success rate in sending inner-city high schools graduates to college. Critics say that while inner-city high schools struggle to pay its teachers and educate its student’s non inner-city high schools don’t have to deal with the lack of school funding. Also students from non inner-city high school are not being given the opportunity to attend colleges once the students graduate. But opponents of these critics blame an entirely different issue; and that is illegal immigrant students over crowding and attending high school at the expense of taxpayers. It cost millions of dollars a year for illegal immigrant students to attend high school and this is the main reason why schools are experiencing budget problems. Teaching illegal immigrant students creates a difficult learning environment and that is why students in inner-city high schools are not moving on to a higher education. This paper will explore the controversy and issues of secondary education; it will expose the hidden truths and prove that illegal immigrants are taking a toll on the education system.

So why has this become a problem that has grown way out of proportion? An organization known as Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) published a report on Immigration and School Overcrowding, with the help of David W. Stewart, author of Immigration and Education: The Cris...

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...ration and School Overcrowding.” Online posting, October. 2002. http://www.fairus.org/ImmigrationIssueCenters/ImmigrationIssueCenters.cfm?ID=1272&c=17

· “Plyler v. Doe” Online source. U.S. Supreme Court. Gov. 1982. 15 June. 2005 < http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Plyler/>

1 Plyler v. Doe also found that there is no fundamental right to education, that Texas had not proved its argument that admission of illegal alien children to public schools would damage the educational opportunities provided to U.S. citizen children, and that there was no evidence that the U.S. government seriously intended to deport the parents of the illegal alien children. The Court could reverse the ruling if these circumstances were to change or if Congress were to make the exclusion of these students explicit by legislation.

Source: U.S. Supreme Court: Plyler v. Doe (1982)