Thursday, June 28, 2007

Crossing the Border Illegally To Go To An American School

Mike of EIA (see blogroll at left) has this to say on the topic, from this week's Communique:

School Choice Black Market Goes International. I love this story because it will have people switching partners faster than a square dance.

The black market in school choice is when parents lie about their place of residence in order to get their kids into better public schools. Many school districts have resorted to hiring investigators and former cops to spy on these interlopers, even prosecuting them. Today's Los Angeles Times adds a wrinkle: kids crossing the border with Mexico to attend U.S. public schools.

It's no surprise that this will get roiled up in the national immigration debate, but it will be interesting to see who defends this practice for kids crossing a national border, while denouncing it for kids crossing a school district boundary line.

That last sentence is priceless.

1 comment:

Ellen K said...

Kids tell me about this kind of thing all the time. They use their grandparents address, their friends' addresses and go to any school they want. And, typically, if things don't go the way they want, they have an easy out. We aren't allowed to ask a student's legal status, but there are many who come to us as 17 year olds that speak such obscure dialects of regional Spanish that even the ESL teachers, one of whom is a native of Mexico City, can't understand him. He was here for eight weeks then moved. We have a whole population that moves every three months and whose phone numbers change every two months. And supposedly they are paying their fair share via taxes. HA!