Submitted by 72nd District Assembly Candidate David Gorski

There’s a slow train a coming and it’s going to run over our public schools in Wisconsin.

As more and more students attending private schools are qualifying for the Tax Payer Funded Private School Voucher Program, more and more of our tax dollars are chugging away from public schools and to private mainly religious schools. During the 2017-2018 school year, tax payers footed the bill for $268 million to fund private schools. Additionally, the state lost $12 million in revenue to the Private School Tuition Tax Deduction Program.

I recently heard Tony Evers, Wisconsin Secretary of Education, state that the Tax Payer Funded Private School Voucher Program will eventually cost Wisconsin tax payers one Billion dollars each school year.

In Michigan, where the public school privatization lobby train has run over public education, Detroit community public schools have gone the way of the passenger pigeon. Areas of Detroit are said to have “School Deserts.” Other cities have also been run over. In Philadelphia this lobby train has left some public high schools without art and music programs.

Now, due to lack of funding, here in Wisconsin stories of teacher lay offs are rolling in from around the state.

I am a retired public school counselor who knows how great our pubic schools are. Public schools are the heart of our communities and a corner stone of our democracy.