Saddleback School Trustee’s Defenders Need Own Motivations Scrutinized

* Joseph Morabito’s apology for Frank Ury (Letters, Dec. 12), the Saddleback Valley Board of Education member who used his elected position to advocate Proposition 174, was disturbing on several counts.

Morabito first attacked the teachers who advocated Ury’s ouster and claimed they attempted to deny Ury his First Amendment rights to express his opinions. Such is not the case. The teachers were merely using their own First Amendment rights to object to the fact that Ury, elected to a public board to better public education, has used that position to try to destroy California public education. Morabito’s advocacy of constitutional rights is curiously selective.

Morabito claims that the failure of some public schools is not the result of inadequate financing, ignoring the fact that only Mississippi spends less on public school students than does California. No, he says, the problems are the result of a “goofy” state curriculum and “a left-wing agenda,” emotion-laden terms that Morabito fails to explain.

And his claim that the teachers are motivated by greed tells us more about his own ignorance of teachers than it does about their motives. In a single sentence, he attempts to damn an entire profession dedicated to the betterment of children and, thus, to the betterment of society. But that they have not always succeeded is amply demonstrated by Morabito’s vitriolic attack.

Mr. Morabito’s most disturbing claim is the threat that “Frank Ury was merely a beacon of things to come.” This is particularly disturbing to me because I voted for Ury. I based my vote on his public statements that seemed to indicate a genuine concern for public education. What Ury did not say until after he was elected was his belief that public education can only be improved by its own demise.

So the Saddleback Valley teachers who called for Frank Ury’s resignation not only exercised their constitutional rights, they also exercised their moral and civic duty.

MICHAEL FINNEGAN

Mission Viejo

* I’m writing in response to Joseph Morabito’s letter “Praise for Pro-174 School Trustee,” regarding Saddleback Unified trustee Frank Ury. Morabito praises Ury for his courage and writes that (Ury) should not “worry about the teachers’ union, which seeks to control board members like puppets on a string.”

Instead, Ury should focus his worries on the right-wing political establishment that elected him and control him, like, well, a puppet on a string.

BARRY P. RESNICK

Orange