Don't blame Proposition 13 

Frank DePasquale’s commentary (“Education: then and now,” Aug. 12) couldn’t be more wrong about Proposition 13, which put the brakes on runaway, unaccountable, state and local government spending and taxing. Low- and fixed-income homeowners, many of them seniors, were thrown onto the streets before it was passed: funny how that was left out of his discussion.

 The California education system has been a bottomless money pit that indoctrinates, not educates. As far back as the late 1950s, students were consistently promoted when they couldn’t read, write, or do math. It was not so wonderful as DePasquale claimed. Today, private-schooled, home-schooled, and charter-schooled students are winning the competitions the public schooled are failing as miserably as they did in the past. His assessment is 180 degrees off. Proposition 13 was and is the only safeguard against the elitist, failed, state government. To say otherwise is not only utter nonsense but also an insult to taxpayers and homeowners. I know, I was there and taught in the system.