Senate Rejects School Repair Bill

Re “U.S. School Repair Bill Voted Down in Senate,” April 22:

Up to $2,000 a year in tax-sheltered education accounts? So basically my 5-year-old son can attend a pathetically, miserably failing public school for three years or more while I save the money for one year of private school. This sounds like a great idea to me. But it does warm my heart to know that at least I have my son’s illiteracy and disdain with the conditions of the educational system to which to look forward.

What is the GOP thinking? I have to suspect that perhaps they disagree with President Clinton simply because he’s Clinton; I can’t imagine a sane person shooting down the opportunity of repairing dilapidated schools and decreasing class sizes. But I shouldn’t be surprised--if I had a swollen salary paid for by taxpayers, enabling me to shelter my son in the poshest of private schools, I’d be afforded the ability to disagree just to disagree as well.

SHANNON ALFF

Long Beach

* I certainly trust that when voters go to the polls, they will remember the actions of the hypocritical pork-barrel Republican Congress in spending our tax dollars to provide colored sidewalks and granite curbs for an affluent Philadelphia suburb (April 22), while concurrently rejecting a proposal to renovate crumbling school buildings around the country.

MARV GRISWOLD

Canyon Lake