Letters: KC readers discuss education priorities, health care and fighting Alzheimer’s
Need to know
I believe school gives us basic knowledge and skills that educators have determined we need, and ends there. Schools exclude lessons that could be more useful and benefit more later. I don’t think math polynomials and dates of historic events will help most of us in the future.
I’m a junior in high school, almost a senior, and feel unprepared for what’s ahead. Others probably do, too. I can’t count how often I come across things that I don’t understand but I should know about. Like recently, the stock market has been big in the media, and I didn’t have a clue what it is. Are we somehow supposed to know what it is on our own? It makes me wonder how many other things I’m not taught that I’d have to look up myself.
Students should be given lessons that involve finances, logical thinking, practical life lessons and everything in between. Speaking from a 16-year-old’s standpoint, I don’t think most students are learning these things at school or home, but instead are researching themselves.
This gives us a great opportunity to incorporate more beneficial lessons into school teaching before we go out into the real world.
- Taylor Drawl, Lee’s Summit
Big obstacles
What an excellent editorial in the Opinion section Feb. 10. (12A, “Why does 5-year-old in bad shape after crash with a Chiefs coach need a GoFundMe page?”) Prayers for the little girl and her family, and I hope the Chiefs will step up with financial help.
The editorial board was so correct in continuing the conversation about our health care situation in the United States, and in sharing information about where we stand on paid parental leave compared with other nations.
Last — and I was so happy to read this —the editorial mentioned that we need much better coverage for drug and alcohol treatment. Our country absolutely does not accept how much damage is done by drugs and alcohol. Unless one has excellent insurance coverage, the most an addict can stay at a facility is a month, which barely covers the issues that a person with this disease needs to work on. I have seen this with family members. Help for mental health issues is pushed to the back, as well.
We also need prayers for Britt and Andy Reid’s family. Such a tragedy.
- Linda Lockwood, Kansas City
End Alzheimer’s
The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the critical importance of medical research. As members of Congress address the needs of our nation’s most vulnerable affected by COVID-19, they continue to address another devastating disease: Alzheimer’s. More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s — a number expected to nearly triple by 2050.
I fight against Alzheimer’s because it’s a genetic mutation in my family and I have lost four loved ones to this disease, including my 55-year-old mother.
By voting to increase funding for Alzheimer’s and dementia research at the National Institutes of Health by $289 million, Sen. Jerry Moran could provide millions of Americans like me with a sense of hope. With these funding increases, scientists would be able to work more quickly to advance disease knowledge, explore ways to reduce risk and make discoveries that could lead to a treatment or a cure.
We can’t afford not to fund research. It is time to honor the requests of scientists and researchers for additional funding so they can bring hope and optimism to the millions of American families affected by this disease.
- Taylor Hutton, Overland Park
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Letters: KC readers discuss education priorities, health care and fighting Alzheimer’s."