To the Editor:
Re “Teachers Saved My Life. Why Do We Scorn Them?,” by John B. King Jr. (Opinion guest essay, June 1):
As a retired secondary school teacher and school administrator who now serves as a community college trustee, I commend Mr. King for his personal reflection on how teachers became his lifeline as he navigated the awesome challenges of his young life.
More than that, I applaud how he repaid those teachers a thousandfold by his lifetime as an educator who clearly sees how the Trump administration is trying to destroy public education with no concern for the irreparable damage its actions are taking on the lives of young people.
While there is little hope that this administration will heed Mr. King’s call for the federal government to protect and accelerate the transformative power of education, all of us whose lives have been positively changed by great teachers should make our voices heard in every possible forum to challenge the Trump agenda to dismantle public education. The future of our country depends on us.
Peter Schmidt
Phillipsburg, N.J.
To the Editor:
John B. King Jr. is not the first and certainly not the last person whose life has been saved by a teacher. That’s what teachers do: expand our lives and our outlooks, and open new worlds.
The dedicated nuns who taught me in our small Catholic school and the professors who opened new worlds of literature and mathematics may not have saved my life, but they certainly expanded it manyfold. And perhaps the best gift I received from them was a love of learning.
The Trump administration knows well that an educated population is the death knell for the MAGA movement and must not be permitted to develop. Different viewpoints must not be tolerated, and controversial topics must not be taught, lest the people become aware and, God forbid, thoughtful. Education is no friend to dictators.
John T. Dillon
West Caldwell, N.J.
Standing Up to Trump
To the Editor:
Re “President Finds a Rival Who Can Punch Back” (news analysis, front page, June 7):
Donald Trump at last appears to have found an adversary who will stand up to him, or so it seems. Many of us are cheered by the sight of someone going toe to toe with the president, unintimidated by his threats, at least for now.
But, like everything else in the Trump era, it’s actually a depressing sight, not a cheerful one. The person who finally stood up to Mr. Trump, Elon Musk, is not a senator, not a member of the House, not a governor, but someone like Mr. Trump himself, a thoughtless billionaire who, unlike Mr. Trump, was not even elected.
And he is standing up to Mr. Trump not because he believes it is the right thing to do, or to save the country from a president who wants to be a king, but because he also wants to be a king, and Mr. Trump stands in his way.
Tim Shaw
Cambridge, Mass.
Homeless Boomers
To the Editor:
Re “Heightened Risk of Homelessness Is Stalking a Generation” (news article, June 4):
Late baby boomers’ struggle with homelessness may indeed be attributed to recessions, drug abuse and the failure of a so-called safety net to provide working- and middle-class Americans adequate medical care, affordable housing, adequate wages and union pensions. As the article suggests, inadequate resources more harshly affect people of color, who already struggle to achieve financial equity.
Yet a large piece of the picture, not fully addressed in your article, is mental illness. Deinstitutionalization has left many financially strapped families with a Hobson’s choice: Either shelter a mentally ill relative who may be disruptive or self-medicating with street drugs, or let that person become homeless.
If a family is not sufficiently affluent to pay for an apartment, or the relative is too disabled or disruptive to be taken into another home, when a parent or other primary caregiver dies, that person will be on the streets.
While the old institutions were snake pits, we have not developed — and funded — viable alternatives to long-term, inpatient treatment for the mentally ill. The so-called late boomers are merely the first post-deinstitutionalization generation to age into homelessness.
Rita C. Tobin
Chappaqua, N.Y.
