For kids like mine, remote learning is becoming pointless. Send students back to class.

Remote learning isn’t working for us

It’s day six and the excitement of remote learning has worn off for my kindergartner. She spends hours twirling in her seat waiting for instruction. She completes two worksheets a day. She learns nothing.

Despite her teacher’s best efforts, how can she teach 18 5-year-olds literacy and math through an app they cannot read?

Students who do not have parents with the ability to supplement curriculum or help them, are struggling. But reality is, even the students with supportive parents are struggling.

Yes, it is the second week. Yes, there is a learning curve. Yes, it’s hard on everyone, but it’s beginning to become pointless, too. When the board of pediatrics recommends you safely put kids back in the classroom, you listen.

Rebecca Hassen, Charlotte

Monday was opposite day at RNC

Monday was opposite day at the Republican National Convention. While the U.S. leads the world in COVID-19 deaths, President Trump claimed to have done everything right to contain it. While racial unrest sweeps the nation, Nikki Haley claimed “America is not a racist country.”

President George H.W. Bush refused to admit we were in a recession and got booted despite having had one of the highest reported approval rates in history. If this administration, which has never had even a 50% approval rating, does not recognize the problems we’re having, they too should be booted.

Vincent Keipper, Concord

So where are protesters’ masks?

I was impressed with reporters’ vigilance turning in RNC delegates who were not wearing masks. Watching the nightly news, I’ve also noticed local protests have included several mask-less participants not social distancing and numbering more than 25.

I’m curious — where are the temperature check stations at protests? Do participants have to be tested before they march?

So if there is a spike in the COVID cases in two weeks, please do not point fingers at the RNC. Look to the streets, Charlotte.

Allison Schaar, Matthews

We can’t go back to pre-ACA days

Several months ago, Republican attorneys general joined Trump in going to the Supreme Court to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, sending a message to millions of Americans that their leaders aren’t looking out for them.

As someone with a preexisting condition who relies on the ACA, I’m appalled at this callousness in the middle of a public health emergency.

I was diagnosed with breast and colon cancer in 2015, a diagnosis I would have never been able to receive were it not for the ACA. We can’t go back to the days when having a preexisting condition meant not getting access to life-saving healthcare.

Donna Marie Woodson, Charlotte

Nation’s interests must come first

I read with interest the candid assessment of Judge Maryanne Trump Barry about her brother Donald Trump. Her observations strongly confirm what others — Gen. James Mattis comes to mind — have also concluded about the president’s egocentric world view and its woeful impact on our country.

I can’t help but believe that many party loyalists, especially Congressional office holders, see the same destructive deficiencies in our president yet are afraid to stand up to his abuses or defend the rule of law.

That raises this question: If they are putting their own interests above our nation’s interests, isn’t that cause enough to vote them out of the offices to which they so fearfully cling?

Geoffrey Planer, Gastonia

Face of the GOP may be changing

Regarding “Davidson student a rising star of GOP, polarizing on campus,” (Aug. 23):

Maya Pillai is a smart young lady and has an impressive resume. It’s clear to me what she is doing. She’s taking a page from what I think is Nikki Haley’s game plan. That is to clearly point out Trump’s flaws and shortcomings, while saying she whole hardily supports him as the leader of her party.

She and Haley both know there will be a Republican Party after Donald Trump. The key is to position one’s self as a “compassionate” conservative without totally alienating Trump’s base. It’s a smart move. Will it work? Who knows, but if it does the party of older white men could become the party of young South Asian women in a decade.

Jack Matthews, Charlotte

Where’s coverage of Jorgensen?

The Editorial Board’s Aug. 23 editorial about a lack of female leaders rings hollow when one sees how poorly the paper is covering the presidential campaign of Libertarian Jo Jorgensen, the only woman leading a national campaign this year. Her message of peace, prosperity and freedom is needed now more than ever, and she deserves her rightful place in media coverage and on the debate stage next to two men credibly accused of misogynist behavior.

Hilton Caldwell, Monroe