Support Keeping Girls in School Act: Letter to the Editor

El Paso Times

Support Keeping Girls in School Act

Education is widely accepted as a fundamental resource for individuals and societies. In many countries, education is seen as a basic human right. Global literacy rates have risen throughout the last two centuries, and secondary and tertiary education has also seen dramatic progression. Despite these global advances, some countries have fallen behind, and girls are the most affected.

Around the world, 130,000,000 girls are not in school, and millions more struggle to attain essential reading, writing, and numeracy skills. Girls between the ages of 10 and 19 are three times more likely than boys to be kept out of school due to barriers such as early and forced marriage, harmful societal and cultural norms, a lack of safety at or while traveling to school, disability, cost of secondary schooling, and forced pregnancy.

To address these barriers, the Senate must pass the Keeping Girls in School Act (S.2276). This bill will employ monitoring and evaluation strategies to ensure that programs significantly close the gender gap in secondary education. In addition to facilitating girls’ progress and development, the collective economic benefits of education will help lift communities and nations out of poverty which is key to advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives.

Please call your senators today and let them know you support the Keeping Girls in School Act.

Caleb Lahr

West El Paso

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Where is Biden's Disinformation Board?

On May 10, the El Paso Times ran an article titled, "Texas does not allow rapists to sue victims."  This claim is actually correct. It went on to report that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted, "In Texas, Republicans passed a law allowing rapists to sue their victims for getting an abortion."  Kudos to the El Paso Times for correcting this very irresponsible statement by Cortez! 

My question is, where is President Joe Biden's Disinformation Governing Board? Isn't this kind of rhetoric exactly why Biden created this board? I smell hypocrisy in the air again.

Joe Valdez

East El Paso

More:Texas must be more creative to overcome teacher shortage: Blake Gumprecht

Is El Paso's teaching requirements unattainable?

I keep hearing about teacher shortages in Texas, 105 in El Paso alone. A couple of weeks ago, you had a guest columnist Blake Gumprecht who applied for a teaching position here but was turned down.

Gumprecht has taught at the University of New Hampshire, University of South Carolina, University of Oklahoma, and high school in News Mexico. However, he has been told he lacks a teaching certificate that would entail a year of school and a $5,000 fee.

He is in El Paso because he volunteered, with no pay, to work with immigrants here. Are El Paso's high school teaching requirements that unattainable compared to the rest of the country?

Albert Flores

West El Paso

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Employees go the extra mile

A huge thank you to all the employees at The MonteVista at Coronado Rehab Center.  While my wife has been there the past five weeks, it's very refreshing to walk in, and every employee you pass takes the time to say hello and ask if they can help you.

The care my wife is receiving there is excellent. She is cared for as if she is the only patient. She receives the attention she needs and always with a smile from an employee.

Thank you, MonteVista at Coronado. 

Juan Rocha

West El Paso

Elderly victims of businesses that don't care

Women in their elder years are victims of businesses that don't care. Why does the elder suffer from dealing with day-to-day business services? Businesses are money hungry, and helping the elderly is not in their business plan. Understand that you will never be considered important to them even if you have given them your hard-earned money.

Jimmy Perez

East El Paso

Why is old campus still in use?

Why does the old University of Texas’s Health Sciences/old nursing school on Campbell Street still have people working and attending classes there when there is one on regular campus?

Paul Davidson

Northwest El Paso