Public Education and the Undocumented Immigrant
Introduction
Thank you all for being here this evening to discuss an issue in the public school system. Undocumented immigrants are entering this country every day and their children are being educated in our schools. A child of an undocumented immigrant, in this case, refers to one whose parents have entered this country without proper legal documentation (Bray, 2016). Undocumented immigrant children may or may not have been born in this country.
Judicial Case
In 1982, the Supreme Court of the United States, based on the trial of Plyler vs. Doe, declared that public schools are not allowed to deny any child a free public education based on their immigration status, according to an article
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According to the Bureau of Legislative Research (2010), students who qualify as English Language Learners (those with limited English skills) earn the school an additional amount of money as well. For the 2008-09 school year, Arkansas districts spent $12.5 million on ELL students according to this same research conducted. According to Oleaga (2014), there were over fifty-five thousand undocumented children unaccompanied by a parent or guardian who were apprehended from late 2013 to mid-2014. This means that more children who have limited English skills are continuing to enter the country.
Cultural Influence Students who have a different background are a benefit to any classroom. They offer diversity and interesting perspectives. According to an article published on the Future of Working website, undocumented immigrants offer these benefits to any community (2015). Their influence would be greatly sought in a Spanish class taught in the U.S. Teachers can see these immigrants as resources and learn from these students.
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However, when a person is here illegally, he or she typically does not have a regular job to pay these taxes. Therefore, the education of children of these immigrants is being funded by taxpaying citizens. All of this is according to an article on the Future of Working website (2015). If the children were born in the U.S., then they are considered citizens, but this does not change their parents’ status. In addition to this, according to the Bureau of Legislative Research (2010), schools must spend money for ELL specialists to spend time with the students who qualify for these services. If a school does not have enough ELL students to qualify for federal funding, these salaries may have to be paid by the district (Wood,