History of Children
In 1975, Texas enacted a state law that enabled its public school districts to charge tuition to parents of unauthorized school children. Although the underlying legislative history is unclear, and although no public hearings were ever held on the provision, certain border Texas school superintendents had supported the legislation, which was enacted without controversy as a small piece of larger, routine education statutes.
School officials in Tyler, Texas, about 100 miles from Dallas, under the direction of Superintendent James Plyler, began charging $1,000 annual tuition for each unauthorized immigrant student, under provisions of the recent state law. The school district had about 60 unauthorized immigrants enrolled out of about 16,000 students total, according to a figure cited in a Texas Observer article.
