Recent editorials from Kentucky newspapers:
Dec. 11
The News-Enterprise on a communications board used at schools in Kentucky that has received international attention:
If you’re outdoors on a chilly December day like this one, how do you tell someone you’re getting cold if you can’t speak?
Students at Morningside Elementary School and other local playgrounds equipped with a communications board can get their message across with a gesture.
Just by pointing to images, they can express pain, ask for water or invite friends to play tag. The board includes 35 one-word expressions to explain emotions, make requests or ask questions.
The idea isn’t new but applying it outside to recess is an innovation that delighted educators and special needs advocates around the globe, following a November story in The News-Enterprise.
Through repeated sharing on Twitter, directing the social media world to the idea, the news report went viral.
Soon comments were coming from Orlando to Oregon, New Jersey to New Zealand. For a few days, it seemed as if educators everywhere were embracing this Elizabethtown idea.
Now three weeks removed from the original story’s publication, the article still is drawing attention as more people share the social media posts. It remains one of the website’s top 10 most frequently viewed stories of the week.
That’s exciting for the people who care for children here and for the newspaper staff that provided a simple story about something good going on locally. But the best part is children with a need can be included in playground fun without facing a communications barrier.
Online: http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/
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Dec. 7
Bowling Green Daily News on a proposal to use retirement funds to pay off student loan debt:
To obtain a college degree, many students must take out student loans to pay their way through school.
There is certainly nothing wrong with this approach, since some students aren’t as well off as others, or their grade-point average isn’t sufficiently high enough to obtain scholarships.
Today, Americans collectively owe about $1.5 trillion in student loans – more than twice the total of a decade ago. This is a staggering number that shows the high cost of attending college must be addressed.
Those who attend college with student loans and get their degree are, on average, left with about $30,000 in student loan debt as soon as they complete their degree. This is quite a lot of money for a 22- or 23-year-old college graduate to pay off, especially when many might not have found employment right out of school.
Those who have student loans are obviously having a hard time paying them back in a timely manner because of the large amount of debt incurred and the very high cost of attending colleges and universities across this country.
Obviously, we need to do something to help these college graduates pay their student loans off more quickly. The question is what.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, has filed a bill called the Higher Education Loan Repayment and Enhanced Retirement, or HELPER, Act. The bill would allow annual tax and penalty-free withdrawals up to $5,250 from a 401(k), 403(b), 457 or IRA to help people pay for college or to pay back student loan debt. The bill would also allow parents or spouses to make withdrawals from their accounts to help make payments. Paul notes that up to $15,750 pre-tax dollars per year could be available to pay for college if two parents and their college-bound child each put aside the maximum amount of $5,250 per year.
This is certainly an interesting proposal by Paul. One concern we have, though, is while it is obviously a college graduate’s right to take money out of a retirement account to help pay down their student loans, by doing so they could have a smaller nest egg when they reach retirement age.
While this legislation would be voluntary if passed, we believe it would be ill-advised for people in their 20s and even early 30s to drain these accounts, because they are forgoing the advantages of compounding interest while they are drawing down their accounts.
The real problem, once again, lies with the high cost of attending college and the daunting challenge of paying off these loans just as graduates are entering the workforce and perhaps starting a family.
We respect Paul and have supported many things he has proposed and voted on while he’s served in the U.S. Senate, but on this one issue we simply disagree with him.
We do appreciate, though, that Paul has brought this issue to the forefront, because it is one that has to be discussed and dealt with like the serious problem it is.
Online: https://www.bgdailynews.com/
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Dec. 6
The State Journal on advice from former Gov. Matt Bevin to newly-elected Gov. Andy Beshear:
Perhaps it’s fitting that Gov. Matt Bevin had a few words of unsolicited advice for his political archnemesis Gov.-elect Andy Beshear. After all, the two have been barbs in each other’s sides for the last four years, so we really shouldn’t expect it to end now that the votes have been counted and Bevin has been unseated.
In an interview (last) week, the governor offered Beshear the following tips: “do the hard things” and “don’t try to be popular.” Ironically, it was the latter - Bevin’s argumentative, aggressive style - that struck a sour note with voters and likely cost him the election.
The outgoing Republican governor said he willingly confronted tough issues such as the state’s pension systems - one of the worst funded in the country - making it easier for his successors.
“Who wouldn’t want to be the governor after the guy who cleans up all the crap? But the thing is this, we didn’t even clean up all the crap,” Bevin told The Associated Press, adding that the state’s underfunded public pension systems remain in “dire straits” and could eventually fail without structural changes.
However, his attempts to alter the pension systems resulted in thousands of protesting teachers converging on the Capitol in 2018; a pension measure being struck down on procedural grounds by the Kentucky Supreme Court after Beshear filed a lawsuit; and a special session that ended without a resolution.
Bevin also advised his successor not to “promise things you can’t deliver” - a jab at Beshear’s campaign guarantee to give public school teachers a $2,000 pay raise, a measure the incoming governor will need to convince Republican lawmakers to back.
Quite frankly, Bevin’s aggressive, confrontational style of leadership didn’t jibe with many Kentuckians. We say let the (governor) do his job the way he wants to do it. After all, he earned it at the ballot box.
Online: https://www.state-journal.com/
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