To the Editor:

The failure of remote learning: While the deaths attributed to the COVID virus are tragic and lamentable, perhaps the worst – and most long lasting – damages the dreadful pandemic is causing are the loss of learning among public school students and the concomitant social, emotional and psychological damage these vulnerable children are suffering from the social isolation imposed in the name of remote “learning.” The use of the word “learning” here is clearly oxymoronic.

My son-in-law teaches middle school math in a public school. He is perhaps the smartest man I know and is certainly the most dedicated, prepared and hardworking teacher I have known. As hard as he tries, however, his students are regressing every day they sit in front of their computer screens. He is fearful that some students, especially those of color, will return to in-class learning at least two years behind where they were when schools unwisely decided to keep these kids out of classrooms.

My grandchild attends public middle school in another “remote learning” district where parents keep in touch. Fully 10 percent of the children at that school are seeing a therapist because of the damage social isolation has caused. Many students are fleeing to private schools that have “miraculously” kept students in classrooms while suffering the exact same very low COVID rate as public school students who are locked up at home.  Public schools seem to be thinking that the CDC and science are promoting myths.

Any school committee or teachers’ union that thinks their joint decision to keep kids at home is wise are fooling themselves on a monumental scale. The damage they are causing will be felt for decades to come. Yet our state legislature watches this atrocity and does nothing.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article whose headline said it all – “Public education’s two afflictions: COVID-19 and teachers unions.” I would add school committees to that unsavory group.

Student loan forgiveness: With the national debt already north of $23 trillion and the Biden administration about to add another $1.9 trillion in pandemic stimulus money, the president’s progressive backers are now pushing him to add another $1.5 trillion to the debt by forgiving all outstanding students loans.

While the additional stimulus spending is bad enough – especially when economists say it is three times more than needed and when the national debt is already $3 trillion greater than our country’s gross domestic product (GDP) – adding another $1.5 trillion to the debt through student loan forgiveness is, well, unforgivable.

What will such forgiveness say to graduates and parents who have acted responsibly and already paid off their student debt? What will it say to students who forwent attendance at Harvard, Yale or another Ivy League school to avoid huge student loans and, instead, attended a state school with far lower student loans? Perhaps most important, what will it tell students and graduates who benefit from loan forgiveness about fiscal responsibility? Will they expect forgiveness in the future for extravagant home mortgages?

For years, senior citizens have told themselves that their grandchildren will be paying off our inexcusable national debt. Unfortunately, we are now resigning ourselves to the fact that it will be our great-grandchildren who will be paying for our generation’s lavishly irresponsible spending.

Asset forfeiture unconstitutional: As a former civilian police officer and military retiree, I find it disgusting that our General Assembly has allowed to remain in place a law that so egregiously violates both the Rhode Island and the U.S. constitutions.

A Providence Journal story told of the Smithfield Police seizing over $300,000 in private property from a man who was accused of possession with intent to sell marijuana. The drug charges against the man were dismissed but he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge.

Rhode Island’s property forfeiture law allows seizure of property related to an alleged crime when the police have only probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. The burden is then on the property owner to prove that the seized property had not been used in the commission of a crime. This leaves seized property owners in the position of “you are guilty until you prove your innocence.” It flies in the face of what we hold sacred in our justice system – that an accused is presumed innocent until the state proves guilt.

Although the state could not prove the drug charges against the Smithfield man and they were dismissed, his property was not returned. Because he pleaded no contest to a minor misdemeanor charge, was it appropriate for the state to penalize him with a fine (his seized property) of over $300,000? Our state constitution’s excessive fines clause clearly says “no,” as does the Eight Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Where is the ACLU on this matter? Surely, an organization whose charter is to protect individual rights and liberties should be at the forefront in fighting this injustice.

Our General Assembly needs to revisit the property forfeiture law and bring it in line with the two constitutions our representatives have pledged to protect.

Lonnie Barham

Warwick