TONGEN’S LEGACY

D-DAY GRATEFUL

Watching the celebrations of D-Day 75 years later, Americans should be grateful to Winston Churchill for his great leadership during WW II.

If not for him, we might, God forbid, be speaking German today.

GO? WHERE? – Harry Turk, Miami

The shocking news of WPLG-Channel 10 news anchor Todd Tongen’s passing by suicide.

Tongen was real, funny, talented, truthful, and he was a part of our lives for real community news; we’ve lost a member of our family.

His children will now only have his legacy, but we know that his role model will live on and his wife will continue to cope with this great loss.

– Marie D. Valenti, South Miami

Everyone keeps writing that the Homestead shelter is an abomination and that the children need to be released.

What I have yet to read is where they will go.

If this country cannot find homes for the homeless or foster children who are born in this country, how can we imagine finding homes for these immigrant children?

– Barbara Parker, Miami EMPTY VOUCHER

State Sen. Manny Diaz’s June 2 OpEd, “New scholarship will continue to strengthen public education for families in Florida,” is a perfect example of how he and his legislative colleagues are gaslighting the citizenry when it comes to their support of public education.

For 20 years, Florida’s public schools have been under attack.

How will another voucher strengthen them? Since the institution of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s A+ plan, we have watched so-called reform policies disrupt public schools while encouraging escape to private choice options.

Our children suffer under a test and punish system of accountability.

Test preparation has taken over the classroom.

Our schools are becoming more racially and economically segregated. Mental health problems are increasing.

There is a critical teacher shortage.

Students — shoved into insane numbers in Advanced Placement classes — are graduating unprepared for the rigors of college. Our children are hurting.

Diaz insists everything is great. The new voucher is just “another in a series of calibrated expansions” of school choice. Citizens beware.

School choice is a euphemism for privatization.

Suggesting that these assaults on our public schools are somehow good for them defies the reality before our eyes.

This is what gas-lighters do.

– Sue Woltanski, Tavernier