For some of us of a certain age, going to any elementary school for any reason is a holiday. One of the things an American parent really shouldn't miss is at least one Thanksgiving lunch with the kids when they're in the early grades. This isn't your father's, or even your, school cafeteria. Nowadays the meals served at public schools are actually inviting, hard as that may be to believe for a generation used to school lunches featuring greens with the taste boiled out of them and a generic slice of ground meat of no clear origin. So much for the good old days.

But back to the glorious new days: Some of the kids at the Thanksgiving lunch might be dressed as Pilgrims, others as American Indians--or as close as the kids can get to either one. Call us pro-stereotype and then call one of the various anti-defamation leagues. Stop us before we call up even more stock American figures.

What fun. The kids are so proud to let the grownups see their artwork. Especially the giant pine cones they've decorated to look just like turkeys. To quote every young matron we've ever known:

The kids are so cute.

Now that we've set the scene, you pick one kid out of each class and send her home. You don't belong, young lady. You're different. You'll not be educated with the rest. Go away, now, before we call the cops.

What?!

How un-American, right? That could never happen here!

Or so many of us thought.

The country's secretary of education and even the United States attorney general felt they had to come out last week with still more guidance to local school districts. Their message: The kids of illegal immigrants must be allowed to enroll in public schools.

Well, sure. Wasn't all that settled in the early 1980s when the Supreme Court ruled that children of immigrants, even illegal immigrants, have a right to public education? For any superintendent who wants a copy of the decision, it's called Plyler v. Doe.

An even earlier authority, and a higher One, put it plainer: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And if you need backup, there's another citation in that Book beginning Suffer Little Children . . . .

But wouldn't you know, some states, and some school districts, have tried to worm their way around the law here and there. California's voters took to the polls in 1994 to deny all state benefits, including education, to illegal immigrants. The courts struck down that decision. (Thank you, Lord.) A few years later, Congress itself tried to pass a law that would have allowed states to charge tuition to the children of illegal immigrants in public schools. After a president named Clinton threatened a veto, Congress backed down. Bless you, Bill.

The feds now say they're getting reports that some school districts are discouraging children of immigrants from showing up at school by requiring Social Security numbers from the parents. Which, of course, the parents don't have. Not real ones, anyway. Ergo, their kids wouldn't go to school. As we said, that's unfair, that's ungodly, that's . . . un-American!

So here we have schools, good schools, filled with good teachers and principals and volunteers and all the others who are supposed to put kids first. Just as the rest of us should. And yet the Department of Education is getting complaints, or says its secretary, Arne Duncan. Which is why he chimed in with the attorney general to say Suffer Little Children to come unto school.

Their message: Schools may ask for proof of residency in a district. But they may not ask for documents, not even a driver's license from a parent, if that would keep the child from enrolling. Even the most Tom Tancredo amongst us must realize that denying education to little children--any children--would be the most effective way not to just cheat them but the nation as a whole. Even if an immigrant is here illegally, his kids might be born here, and therefore they would be true red-white-and-blue Americans. If you're born in America, you're American, a real yankee doodle dandy. It's like being one of the family.

Even if the kids were brought here as babies, why punish them for the sins of their parents? And punish the rest of us, too. If that's not clear, here's a simple question to ask yourself. Would it help or hurt society--its tax base, its job market, and the whole general welfare--to have more or fewer educated young people? Heck, that's not even a Yes or No question. It's a rhetorical one.

Look, we're talking about children here. Their futures and all of ours. For goodness sake, let 'em go to school. Insist they go to school. Besides, some of us have our souls to think about.

Editorial on 05/12/2014