Procédure de révision

Presentation: education

Agathe: The topic today is about education system in US.  My name is Agathe, I am a judge and I will be the leader of the debate. You know sometimes there is huge gap between the government and the society who is concerned about this law. That’s why our guests today are the Minister of Education Geoffroy at my right, and at my left, Juliette an history teacher from France teaching in USA. Thank you for coming with us today.

I think it will be interesting to start with a historical summary of education in US. As a history teacher can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Juliette: Yes, it will be my pleasure. If we do a little backtracking through history, you can see that there is a lot of period in the American education system. I will explain you the most important. First, the first public school in the American colonies opened in 1635 and it was the Boston Latin School. One years after, the famous Harvard College has been created. In 1790, Pennsylvania state constitution calls for free public education for poor families, whereas wealthy families are expected to pay for their children’s schooling. To 1852 to 1917, each state enacted law about the mandatory school until 16 years old. The first state was Massachusetts and the last Mississippi. In 1959, a great step in our education system is adopted, the US Supreme Court rules schools segregated by race are unequal and therefore unconstitutional. In 1979, the US Department of Education is established, am I right? Yes, that’s correct (petite question au minister). To conclude, in 1996 a proposition passed in California making it illegal for children of undocumented immigrants to be deny of public school.

Agathe: We will talk about immigration and education later. But for now, minister can you talk to us a little bit more about the educational system of today, and the laws into force?

Geo: No child left behind….

Agathe: Very nice presentation, but you are probably award that today we are talking about the broken education system. And statistic illustrate that, for example as you can see the result of ….

You talked about immigration in your timeline presentation, that was very interesting. But I think that even with this reform today, access to education remain an issue, depending on the revenue of your parents, the local community where you came from, to illustrates my thought, there is this case Plyler v.Doe ….

Lien avec le 14ème Amendement, pas prévu à la base pour l’education mais il s’est avéré qu’il a eu un énorme impact sur l’éducation….

What do think about that, as a teacher you probably face a lot of this situation?

Juliette: Yes, it’s true. The decision Plyler v.Doe that you quote has ensured equal access to education for children regardless of their status, but there is still an anti-immigrant feeling to threaten that right. States and localities have passed measures and adopted unofficial policies that violates the spirit of the ruling of the Supreme Court. I’m a teacher of Secondary in Alabama and for example, I want to talk about a law enacted in 2011, that requires school administrators to determine the immigration status of newly enrolling students. In my opinion, the supporters of this law in Alabama want to challenge the Plyler v. Doe ruling. They argue that the enrolment of undocumented children harmed the overall quality of education. Fortunately, the provision of the law was permanently blocked in October 2013.

I’m not aware of every measure taken by States, but I’m sure that the law of Alabama was and is not the only one. In 2006, the school district in Elmwood Park, Illinois, denied enrolment to a student who had overstayed the tourist visa on which he had originally entered the country. The district ultimately permitted the student to enrol, however, after the Illinois State Board of Education threatened to withhold funding. As you can imagine, the issue about undocumented children education is not settled. Because public school are funded by local taxes, some district does not want this money goes to the education of aliens, while legal citizens could receive this money for a better education. Undocumented children should not be penalized for their illegal status. They should have access to the education as citizens and other persons living legally in the country.

...