This May Have Promise: Trustee's idea could be guest-worker pilot

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

“Oh, that Joe May. What will he think of next? First, a bilingual mandate for principals. Now, hiring illegal immigrants to teach bilingual education. ... Let DISD provide the lab. Set up a pilot program here that would grant the school district a waiver from legal-status requirements for, say, 200 teachers. ... Require noncitizen hires to get in line for citizenship and sign five-year teaching contracts that have the force of deportation if the employee leaves for any reason short of extraordinary. If Mr. May is right, DISD gets the teachers it needs, 200 formerly illegal immigrants pay America back for their opportunity, and, most important, some kids get the teachers they need. Sounds like a win-win-win to us.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Sounds like win-win? I don't think so. Sounds like indentured servitude. The people in front of the classroom will be there under penalty of deportation if they decide one, two or three years into their teaching career that they are unsuited to teaching. We ought to be attracting teachers who are there for the love of teaching. Not because it's either the classroom or the border.

A guest worker program can do much to address the problem arising from our country being home to eleven million illegal aliens. But any such program needs to be based on our free enterprise system of free labor markets. Guest workers should be free to change jobs and still maintain their guest worker status. The program should not be based on indentured servitude.