I am a voter from Orlando. It worries me that the secretary of education intends to give my tax dollars to schools that discriminate against certain kinds of students — any students. Turning classrooms homogeneous harms the excluded students and also damages the “protected” ones by teaching them that the world is and should be made up of only people just like them.

This discrimination could lead to increased suicides among excluded children and increased violence perpetrated by children indoctrinated to be bigots. These voucher schools must not be supported by taxes. I am asking Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio, and Rep. Val Demings to support the use of public money for only public education — not for the voucher system and not for religious education.

— Melissa L. Garber
Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel