Competition for Public Education

* The recent incident in which a 5-year-old boy was forgotten and left for over four hours in a Fullerton School District bus with the temperature exceeding 91 degrees is appalling and is yet another example of the lack of accountability of school district bureaucrats. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated event. It was only recently that the Orange Unified School District received certification from the California Highway Patrol that district school buses were safe. The district bus fleet had failed several previous inspections.

Those opposed to Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative, claim that passage of the initiative would lead to the opening of schools that would not be properly regulated. What we really need is competition. The bureaucrats who run the public education system need to be subjected to the competitive pressures that the rest of us must face in this troubled economy. Maybe then, students like the little boy in Fullerton won’t be forgotten.

JAMES E. GALLAGHER

San Clemente