Letters

To the Editor:

President Vicente Fox of Mexico should be commended for his attempt at improving public education in Mexico ( "Educating Mexico," March 20, 2002). But while his heart is in the right place, with the children of Mexico, public education in his country, or for that matter in most of Latin America, will continue to lag far behind the rest of the industrialized world until local property-tax laws are enforced.

In Mexico as elsewhere in Latin America, it is the central government that delegates public education to a budget-line item. Thus, the local population has little power in local school politics, educational choices, or school activities. The public school system is just a place to send the child when a family or single parent cannot pay for a private school. Historically, only Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and now Mexico have given public education the high expenditures and...