Do we abandon our children?
I was recently reading statistics on the number of children not yet attending school, and I was shocked to see that in some districts 80% of students must still learn remotely.
As a retired educator from South Carolina with 31 years of service in high school, high school and community college, that number is impressive to me.
Why are we neglecting these children and assuming it is normal to do so? Many children who are still in remote situations come from low rural and socioeconomic homes.
It is the children who most need to go to school. Their parents are often unable to help them adequately because they lack the technical knowledge and may have external job responsibilities.
This is a tragedy and can be considered the highest level of negligence on our part as a state. We are stifling their opportunity for an adequate advancement in life and success in life, denying them the disciplined experiences of being in the school classroom with their teacher and classmates.
We must place our children in school in a safe and appropriate manner.
SANDRA F. GRIFO
Alston Court
Florence
Protect all life in SC
State lawmakers seem to be more concerned with their jobs and religious beliefs than with “protecting life,” as stated when our governor signed the new abortion bill.
The law protects only birth, not life.
But when it comes to protecting life with actions to support education, improve health and provide other essential services, cutting taxes always seems more important.
When failures occur, usually due to lack of funds, deflecting blame becomes the priority.
How sad and dangerous.
PETER WERTIMER
Rose hill lane
Mount Pleasant
Walking hurts without qualification
Thank you for posting Steve Chapman’s comment, “The disadvantages of raising the nation’s minimum wage” on Saturday. He makes some excellent points.
However, he forgot another important one. With the proposed minimum wage, an unskilled youth would probably not be hired and would have the chance to acquire skills and experience that would justify good wages.
The minimum wage was never intended to provide a sustainable wage.
A potential employer would be more inclined to hire an inexperienced person knowing that there was some freedom to increase the pay in proportion to the acquisition of professional skills.
Of course, it needs to be adjusted periodically for inflation, but certainly not doubled.
HARRIET S. LITTLE
Joyce Lane
Summerville
Benefits of salary increase
Raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour can have an impact on Social Security and Medicare coffers.
For workers earning the mandatory minimum wage of $ 7.25 an hour, their contributions to Social Security and Medicare would more than double.
These additional funds would not only help sustain the funds available to current Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries, but would also provide additional funds for when those same workers become eligible for benefits.
Although these benefits are adjusted by increases in the cost of living, the wages that pay for some of the benefits are not.
This aggravates the situation where you are leaving more than entering.
This is not sustainable.
The increase in the minimum wage benefits us all, in the long and short term. In addition to Social Security benefits, how many people could get out of many social security programs if they were earning a decent salary?
PATRICIA BELLOCK
Chatsworth Colonial Circle
North Charleston
Common sense?
I go to the supermarket and buy half a kilo of sliced ham wrapped in plastic, a loaf in a plastic bag, a gallon of milk in a plastic jar, a packet of napkins wrapped in plastic, a ready-made salad in a plastic container, a bottle of plastic ketchup, a plastic bottle of mustard and they won’t give me a plastic bag to take home because the plastic bag is bad for the environment.
SEYMOUR ROSENTHAL
Sharpestowne Court
Mount Pleasant
Bye Bye Bye
I am comforted that the opinion columnist Kirkpatrick Sale has realized that Interstate 95 works both ways.
LENNY BRANCH
Jasper Boulevard
Sullivan’s Island