National Spelling Bee shows need for high-skilled immigration

Indian-Americans again owned the Scripps National Spelling Bee, as Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam were declared co-champions Thursday. That makes it eight years in a row that Indian-Americans have won the spelling championship. With co-champions in the past two years, it means that the last 10 champions have all been born to parents of Indian descent.

Make no mistake: Though their names may seem uncommon, and their ancestors didn’t come to the United States on the Mayflower, Shivashankar and Venkatachalam are Americans through and through. They hail from the Great Plains states of Kansas and Missouri. They attend public schools.