The Cupertino Courier

Local pens school-choice book

By Katherine Petersen

Born and raised in Cupertino, Alan Bonsteel, M.D., will return to his old stomping grounds as a published author. Bonsteel, a 1969 graduate of Lynbrook High School, wrote A Choice for Our Children: Curing the Crisis in America's Schools between attending one patient and another at the small hospital in Lone Pine where he works as an emergency-room physician. Lone Pine is in the Owens Valley near Mt. Whitney.

The book, published by the Institute for Contemporary Studies in San Francisco, hit bookstore shelves two weeks ago, and Bonsteel will sign copies of his book on Sept. 25 at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at 3600 Stevens Creek Blvd. in San Jose.

Bonsteel, an advocate of a voucher program in education, believes all children should have the same choices in education. The current public school system has little flexibility for children with low incomes, handicaps or language barriers, he said.

"Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative of 1993, was supposed to be the wake-up call for our public schools," said Bonsteel, who also attended De Anza College. "But they're worse than ever, especially in the big cities, where many of them resemble war zones. The academic standards are so low and the danger from guns and drugs so great that public school teachers are enrolling their own children in private schools at higher rates than the general public."

People can read the first four chapters of the book at http://www.getrealed.org.

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