Other factors in Prop. 98

Re “X+3(Y)politics = Prop. 98,” Opinion, July 13

Joe Mathews missed one important point in his discussion of school finance: What preceded Proposition 98 was far worse. Every year, education was held hostage by the Legislature. School districts had no idea what their budgets would be until the last minute. Teachers never knew from year to year if they were getting a raise, a cut or no change. Parents and students never knew what programs would be kept, discarded or expanded.

Finally, there was the perfect political storm. The California Teachers Assn. coalesced into a political machine with the beginning of a well-organized, data-driven campaign. Thousands of teachers phone-banking and participating in a massive get-out-the-vote effort led to success.

Of course, the present system is maddening but, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the other systems we tried were far worse.

Patrick Murphy

Corona

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What an awful article on Proposition 98. Half of it is the writer whining about how hard it is to explain Proposition 98, reminding me of President Bush explaining how “hard” his job is, how “hard” everybody in the White House is working for us. Maybe someone else should tackle this assignment too. And maybe each of us should ask our state representatives to send us an explanatory letter on Proposition 98 -- just to make sure they understand it.

Jody Kay

Rossmoor