Community college enrollment fell during the pandemic. Going back to full in-person learning will bring students back, one college student writes.
Brian Rich/Sun-Times
The Sun-Times editorial, “There’s plenty of work to do to improve Illinois schools” noted the challenges schools faced during the pandemic. One is that community college enrollment fell 14% among primarily Black and Latino students.
I am a college student who was affected by the switch from in-person attendance to virtual, remote learning, and I believe that in-person learning helps students comprehend and understand the material better. You cannot focus when you are at home and there are so many things distracting you. Some of my previous classmates had children at home, and it was overwhelming to care for them while attempting to learn and engage in their own studies. Even teachers find it difficult to teach remotely.
SEND LETTERS TO: letters@suntimes.com. We want to hear from our readers. To be considered for publication, letters must include your full name, your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be a maximum of 375 words. Check out our guidelines.
However, a lot of schools did not give teachers the opportunity to participate in remote learning decisions. Teachers should be asked for their insight, because it’s not easy getting students focused via the computer. Students’ voices are equally important. No one understands a person’s home situation better than the person living it.
I believe that once school is “normal” again, the percentage of Black and Latino students enrolled in college will increase.
Bobby Sapp, student, Northeastern Illinois University
It’s disgraceful the “hardest-working paper in America” could not have worked a little harder and found a few inches of space in its Oct. 30 edition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Illinois Central train crash in which 45 people died and hundreds more were injured in Chicago’s worst transit disaster.
A news story recalling the shattered lives and careers of hard-working Chicagoans on their way to work and school that day would have been meaningful to your readers.
Where are your brains and heart?
John H. Flannigan, Albany Park
I have no doubt that there are important, desirable parts to the SAFE-T Act. But the problem with the current state of our governments, federal and state, is that every bill must be big. Really big. Sure, there are always some important issues to address. Then there are dozens of things that would never pass on their own, that they hope you don’t see and know about until the bill is passed. That’s how the government can waste billions of dollars. They stick items in enormous spending bills that nobody has time to check and question.
It seems the SAFE-T Act must be gone over again, piece by piece. Are all the critics wrong? If a bill has that many critics, then government needs to step back and try to build a consensus rather than forcing things on the public that are highly divisive. Remember our Constitution: “... to form a more perfect union...insure domestic tranquility...”
Government is not only not doing its job, it is working against the American people when it pushes through unpopular, contentious legislation.
Larry Craig, Wilmette
