The recent sudden influx of illegal immigrants was predicted to cause a host of problems for locations where the immigrants, especially children, were transported. Sure enough, we have an uptick in illnesses that Americans were not normally exposed to and increased enrollment in public schools in many affected communities. However, one problem that was unanticipated was adults enrolling in public high schools. This needs to be stopped.
The Obama Justice Department has been busy reminding schools that they are obliged to accept all students, cannot ask about immigration status, and can only verify address, not age of any people who want to register. While the fact that adult immigrants want to educate themselves is admirable, it does present both safety problems and a cost burden for impacted taxpayers. Luckily, there is a solution.
Adult immigrants should be offered separate, adult-only, educational opportunities. These could be English classes, literacy classes, or fuller course work leading to a GED. The courses could be taught by members of the
While it is still unfair for taxpayers to pay for the education of non-citizens, at least this makes all taxpayers share the cost of our broken immigration system and the non-enforcement of our existing laws. I suspect it would also be far less expensive than allowing adults to attend public schools. We will even recapture some of the money spent through taxes on the higher wages the more educated immigrants will earn.
I am generally against all public benefits for immigrants (by law, they are only supposed to receive education and that right was invented by judges, not passed by Congress). However, the immigrants are here, we are unlikely to ever make them leave, so pragmatism has its place. In this case, I would support using Teach for America to staff adult education centers where there is sufficient demand and making those classes available either for free or a very low fee to all interested adults with no checks of immigration status (any adult, including non-immigrants could take advantage of the courses).
Immigrants have what we call a bimodal distribution of educational attainment. Some are highly educated, often in American universities, and have received work permits due to those skills. Others, particularly illegal immigrants, have only a high school education or less. Thanks to an immigration system that bases decisions more on country of origin and family connections than on employment-related skills, many immigrants would benefit greatly from educational opportunities.
While more education is a plus, adult education should not be held in our public schools in classrooms full of children. Because illegal immigrants have not been screened for criminal histories, and because the public schools cannot even ask questions about students they suspect of being too old, the best option is to create a parallel adult education system. It might even be possible to run such a system through the existing networks of community colleges and vocational-technical schools.
In such a system, the federal government would provide Teach for America members to teach the classes along with some limited funding to rent space from the local college. Classes could be by day or by night depending on the local demand.
While expanding free adult education to any adults who are interested would mean taxpayer funding, in the long run taxpayers will either come out ahead or get at least some of their investment back as the more educated workforce earns more, pays more taxes, collects fewer government benefits, and commits fewer crimes.
Comprehensive immigration reform, or at least enforcement of the current laws, would be a better solution than this. However with Congress unlikely to accomplish anything and President Obama continuing to delay executive action (there is always an election on the horizon), expanding adult education without restriction on immigration status would be both humane and economical. When you add in the benefits to the public schools of removing adult immigrants from their classrooms the benefits of such a program grow even larger.
It is unclear the government is correct to be pushing more and more people toward a college education. In contrast, helping everyone in the U.S. learn to read, speak English, and obtain a high school equivalency certificate would provide benefits to the adults taking classes and to society. Perhaps such an effort could be a program that both liberals and conservatives can support.
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