NC legislators should fund early education

A crisis is looming in our state by June 30, just days away — a crisis for families, for businesses and for our economy. If the N.C. General Assembly doesn’t act this week to fund early childhood education by at least $300 million, nearly a third of childcare providers will have to close as federal relief funding comes to an end this month. This will leave 100,000 young kids without care, their families without options and businesses without essential workers.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation recently released a report that the lack of access to childcare in North Carolina is costing $5.65 billion in lost economic activity every year. Without state funding, parents will have to pay an additional $100 a month per child to be able to go to work. Our economy will take a big hit. High quality early education is essential for children’s development and for a healthy competitive workforce.

I am outraged that both the N.C. House and N.C. Senate agree that the state should spend millions of dollars for private school vouchers for families that can already afford private schools- schools that have aren’t required to have certified teachers or standardized testing, that can deny admission based on religion, sexual orientation of disabilities. But they are not willing to assure basic childcare for hundreds of thousands of young children so their parents can be productive workers.

If you care about our children and if you care about our economy, let your representatives in Raleigh know: our state needs funding for early childhood education, now!

— Eileen Hanson-Kelly,
Salisbury 

Clark brings viewers to WNBA, gets hacked

Who knew there were so many racist haters in the WNBA. Seems like a week doesn’t go by when viral videos are exposing these women for who they really are while trying to disguise their “basketball play.” Truth is the WNBA was basically a non-entity until Caitlin Clark burst onto the scene; ratings and attendance are way up. That’s probably going to change, and the league will go back to half-empty arenas since the league execs are not doing anything to fix the problem. 

— Floyd Prophet,
Kannapolis

 

The Ten Commandments and the presidency

It seems to me that the recent law requiring Louisiana schools to post the Ten Commandments is a good news/bad news situation. On the good news side, we have a Donald Trump, a presidential candidate, to use as an example for the children of how to break one of more of the commandments. Since it is not uncommon for parents to tell their children they can become anything they want to be, breaking one or more of the commandments will not stop them from becoming president of the United States. In fact, it seems like it’s almost a requirement.

On the negative side, if people start taking the 10th, commandment seriously it could destroy our whole economic system. Also on the negative side, since each commandment is not printed in its entirety, the punishments for breaking a commandment may be overlooked, especially the second commandment. Breaking that one would be bad news for your children.

Fortunately, not many people take them seriously anyway.

— Roger Hull,
Salisbury