Sheboygan letter-writers on charter schools, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and SASD building new schools

Here are this week's letters to the editor of the Sheboygan Press. See our letters policy below for details about how to share your views.

Taxes pay for voucher and charter schools, too

This is to the misguided people who believe that if we get rid of all public schools in Wisconsin their tax bills will plumet. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Where do you think the money for voucher schools and charter schools come from? A magic genie? It comes from taxes. That’s right, your taxes.

The reason public schools are failing our students has nothing to do with unions. The Republicans in Madison have been slashing the public-school funding and funneling more of the money into for-profit voucher and charter schools. These for-profit schools even get more money per student than the public schools do. And private-for-profit schools do not have to follow the same regulations as public schools have to.

It would be nice if our students could drive BMWs, but at what cost? They are not cheap, or everyone would be driving one.

Robert R. Ries

Sheboygan

Doubting the sincerity of Sen. Baldwin’s ad on drug addiction

In a new 60-second campaign ad, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, uses her mother’s drug addiction to convey concern about the ongoing drug overdose crisis.

The ad makes no mention, however, of how she ignored the opiate overprescribing problem at the Tomah VA hospital in 2014.

Nor does it mention that she sat on the report notifying her of the problem for five months before a whistleblower forced the issue.

The ad certainly doesn’t mention that she paid nearly $90,000 to a “political fixer” to hush up the scandal.

As her inactivity led to the death of at least one Marine veteran while an inpatient and at least five fatal overdoses linked to the facility, I have a lot of reasons to doubt the sincerity of this self-serving campaign ad.

Steven Birkholz, M.D.

Kohler

More letters to the editor: Click here to read more letters to the editor of the Sheboygan Press

SASD parents, taxpayers should demand better before moving forward with new construction

The Sheboygan Area School District is considering building two new schools. Recently, there have been discussions about school choice in local editorials, which piqued my interest in SASD’s current situation.

From reviewing the Department of Public Instruction’s report cards for 2013-14 and 2022-2023, it is apparent the district has faced a considerable decrease in enrollment, losing more than 500 students over this period.

Furthermore, with an Overall Accountability Score of 61.5, SASD ranks in the lower 15% of schools across the state — meaning 85% of schools are rated higher.

Given these factors, it seems essential for SASD parents and taxpayers to demand better performance from the district, especially before moving forward with expensive new construction projects in the face of declining student numbers.

Joseph Bernstein

Oostburg

Our letters policy

Letters to the editor are published in the order in which they are received and letter-writers are limited to having one letter published per month. Letters can be emailed to news@sheboyganpress.com and Editor Brandon Reid at breid@gannett.com. Letters must meet specific guidelines, including being no more than 250 words and be from local authors or on topics of local interest. All submissions must include the name of the person who wrote the letter, their city of residence and a contact phone number. Letters are edited as needed for style, grammar, length, fairness, accuracy and libel.

This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan letters on charter schools, Tammy Baldwin, SASD new schools