Controversy is swirling in Russellville, Arkansas where a local middle school’s yearbook included a list of “The Top 5 Worst People of All Time” that ranked Dick Cheney and George W. Bush just behind Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and Charles Manson.

The good folks over at The Blaze.com caught this one from the Fox-affiliate, Channel 16, in Arkansas:

Of course no one in charge of the school (or school district) knows how this list made the cut to be included in the yearbook:

Superintendent Randall Williams calls the list “an oversight.” Parents caught it after the yearbooks were printed. The district’s solution was to cover the list with tape. It didn’t work.

“Really?” said Williams when told the tape could be pulled off. “Well that’s disappointing because the yearbook supplier told us this was a definite fix.”

When asked if the yearbook sponsor, a paid teacher, thought that it was appropriate to include the list in the yearbook, Williams said no.

“I think it’s just hard to explain, and I’ve talked to the sponsor and she is very very very upset about it. That she didn’t pay any attention to that particular part of that particular page,” he said. “I think she maybe just scanned the whole page and went on.”

It would be nice to hear a simple apology and a promise that nothing like this would ever happen again, right?

Williams says the yearbook editing process is under review. He won’t comment on what’s happening with the yearbook sponsor, saying he can’t talk about disciplanary issues.

Phew! Rest assured tax-paying parents: Superintendent Williams is on the case! A “review” of the “yearbook editing process” is underway.

More disturbing than the list in question is the ham-fisted way in which more and more school districts are run. These are largely unaccountable “administrators” who are overseeing a system that rewards teachers for simply sticking around long enough to get tenure. In a school voucher system, teachers would be more accountable for their actions and school administrators would be unable to sit idly by as gross incompetence is put on full display by their subordinates.