How sad it makes me feel when I read an article or watch a teacher's representative of the Alabama Education Association or hear a superintendent address issues like the current immigration legislation found, for the most part, to be legal and correct in basis. When I see and hear a teacher say, "It is not our job to police our students to determine if they are here legally, we are educators"; or a superintendent say "our primary concern is the education of our students and thus we will not interfere with their presence, legal or otherwise, so they need not worry," I am dumbfounded.

Education is teaching children life's information and requirements so they can use that information and those requirements to grow into honest, knowledgeable people who accept responsibility for how they function within society.

Questions such as what is honesty, what is right and wrong, is life always fair and do I have to make decisions in life and take responsibility for my actions are the foundation of education. Teachers and administrators who are so steeped in political correctness and the liberal, self-centered ranting of an education association have lost contact with the meaning of education and its real purpose.

Teachers should be responsible for ensuring that those in their classrooms are legal, so those who have legitimate right to be there recognize the teachers as affirming and addressing right from wrong, as well as knowing honesty from dishonesty.

Superintendents oversee the administration of educational systems and have the responsibility to ensure that all under their care, custody and control are conforming to the laws of the land. Statements to the contrary confess a dereliction of duties.

I do have empathy for those young people who were born in this country or came to this country illegally through no fault of their own. However, the responsibility for any penalties they may have to pay is that of their parents or others who have put them in that position.

But how about all of those who went through the process to be citizens or here legally? They pay their taxes, take responsibility for their medical and housing needs and become upstanding members of American society. While there are a number of hardworking illegal residents in this country, the numbers of illegal residents involved in criminal activities beyond their illegal residency status are growing.

Wake up, those of you who profess to being educators but are failing to educate. Alabama has simply affirmed the law of the land in this legislation. You have an obligation to enforce the law.

William Moulton

Hoover