LETTER: Politics aside, what matters is that public schools are failing

To Ozaukee Press:

This is written in response to the editorial published in last week’s Ozaukee Press, “Voters stand up for public education.”

Why is it that candidates who align themselves right of center politically are consistently vilified as attacking public education?

Locally and across the country, we have seen declining performance in key areas like math and reading. Port Washington High School recently obtained the lowest DPI score in all of Ozaukee County and the Port Washington-Saukville School District has seen significant growth in the student population classified as “below basic” levels in English language arts and math. Nationwide, we see the same trends, with zero states increasing reading scores since 2019 among fourth and eighth grade students. The same data show decreasing scores in 29 states for fourth graders and an astounding 33 states among eighth grade students. 

These are not political beliefs; these are the facts. This is the real attack on education. We cannot continue to turn our backs on our students and turn a blind eye to the falling standards in our schools.

Whether you are left, right or center from a political ideology is immaterial. We need to begin electing leaders who are willing to be honest and fix what is very clearly broken. It just so happens most of those people happen to be “right.”

Robert Brooks

Port Washington