Letters to the Editor (Dec. 16)

Dreamers wish list

Sen. Moran, we are at your office in Wichita to request thoughtful consideration of the effect of the tax plan on the people and to ensure that any tax plan includes a DREAM Act.

As for the Dreamers, we thank you for your time last week in your D.C. office. We appreciate your commitment to young people who are valuable and contributing members of our society. We want to reiterate the Dreamers concerns in writing:

Items that Dreamers will not accept in a DREAM Act: A wall, criminalization of their parents, information sharing with other agencies.

What we need is a pathway to citizenship with the urgency to get it done this year.

We also express our concern about a tax bill that will punch a $1.5 trillion hole in the federal deficit. We fear that this hole will be filled with chunks of money pulled from programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, food stamps, and other safety net programs.

We have seen what a massive tax cut does to social services and the financial health of Kansans. We ask you show us a path that will protect and that benefits children, women, and men.

Keep spotlight shining on reading

The Eagle’s editorial (“Reading problems affect us all”) was correct. If a child cannot read, he will become lost in a world of confusion. His future is heading for a dead end.

Here is the solution: Go back to teaching good old-fashioned phonics. Teaching children by the phonics method has been around since public schools started in our country. Nearly every person who attended school learned to read. At some point, someone thought of a “better way.” We are now paying a heavy price for that way — whatever it is called.

The method of teaching phonics was not broken. Why was someone or group trying to fix it?

I would suggest that you investigate the private schools and home schools as to how it is that their kindergartners go into first grade with such an amazing reading vocabulary.

Better off without Tyson

Thank goodness Tyson won’t be built in Sedgwick County. One of the proposed sites was close enough to my school to cause problems.

Even though I won’t be there next year, I have three siblings who have at least one year left. The plant probably would have made the air too polluted to play outside. Thank you, Sedgwick County.

Glass houses

There is scarcely an individual without a serious blemish in his or her life. Surely if every congressman or congresswoman had to pass such a test, even with fewer years than Roy Moore, how many present public leaders would still be squeaky clean?

And how great it is that those who have made pitiful choices in the past, like me, can make life-changing choices, and be an asset as a helpful servant in society? That is the great principle of God’s grace.

This story was originally published December 16, 2017 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Letters to the Editor (Dec. 16)."