Education and Prop. 13

* I think Richard Reeves misses an important point in his California Commentary (Sept. 17). Certainly, some element of generational indifference, or selfishness, is present in unwillingness of Californians to increase their tax burden to funnel more money into California’s school system. However, Reeves ignores a much more potent motivation on the part of the majority of California’s voters. Californians no longer trust government to spend tax money in ways that produce any real social benefit.

Rather, they see an educational bureaucracy trapped in its own discredited paradigm and elected representatives who respond only to aggressive and vocal special interest groups. In such circumstances, why throw away additional, hard-earned savings for programs that most people, rich and poor, and including educators, see as not working. That people of average means will sacrifice when they believe that these sacrifices can produce some result can be seen in the success of various local, private drives to raise money for school programs that people want their children to have.

Reeves’ conclusionary paragraph seems to be a result of some excessive, Faustian gloom. Since I am about his age, I know the feeling. California will not die, although it will change. What will help keep it alive are measures like Prop. 174 which, if passed, will force the public education establishment to change its ways in order to maintain its dominance, something it can do if it can find a way to work back to the educational system we had in the first 25 years following World War II.

WALTER S. FISHER

Palos Verdes Estates

* Richard Reeves hit it right on the nail. The death of the Golden State began with the passage of Prop. 13 in 1978. Full rigor mortis setting in . . . libraries closed, health and mental health care at an all-time low. We can’t blame it all on the illegal immigrant, on drugs, on the breakdown of the family. This really struck home while my husband and I were vacationing in Germany this summer.

Two of our tour companions were from New York. He recently retired as a professor at SUNY. She was a retired school librarian. I felt so profoundly sad when we were discussing education and he remarked what a shame it was that California’s educational system had deteriorated so much in the last 15 years. “Why,” he said, “New York modeled their university system after California’s because it was such a great model.” No one is looking towards us now.

DIANA SHIRLEY

Sierra Madre

* My wife and I voted for Prop. 13 to save our home. In 1972, our tax bill was $2,100. In 1975, it was $3,600, an increase of about 71%. When the county tax juggernaut hit us again in 1978, we found out that our next tax bill was going to $6,600, an increase of about 83%. One did not need to be a rocket scientist to guess that the 1981 bill would have been around $11,000. Reeves says we all grew wealthy because of the increase in the value of our homes. A specious argument, since one would have had to sell his home to realize any gain in value. And, with tax bills as projected, who in the world could afford to buy these homes?

It continues to amaze us how Prop. 13 gets the blame for everything.

JOHN and MARY CORCORAN

Playa del Rey

* Reeves blames Prop. 13 for the state’s fiscal woes. His blame is misplaced. Prop. 13 was just one reaction to the real culprit: artificially high real estate values created by the greed of speculators and developers. Real estate values are now beginning to fall. When they have finally dropped to realistic levels, California can pick itself up and move on, leaving the casualties behind.

STEPHEN BARCLAY PLACE

Vista