School discipline starts at the top
I found the article by Bill Torpy, “Teachers union head: No. 1 problem is discipline” (May 15), to be disturbing. In particular, I found the comments of Superintendent Devon Horton to be very disturbing. He is quoted as saying, “The days — those golden days of where you tell the student to sit down and they sit down, that’s not the case anymore.”
So, Mr. Horton, what is the expectation? I assume that you are a parent. If you asked your child to sit down and they didn’t, would you consider that appropriate? Isn’t sitting down a de-escalation? And, if your child still did not sit down, what would you do? And, while all this is happening, your 1-year-old is crying and needs attention. Is that good parenting?
I am a resident of DeKalb County, and while I am a senior citizen and have no children in school, I am appalled that you can have that opinion and still be superintendent. No wonder public schools are in trouble. If my children ever refused to sit down when a teacher asked them to, they would be in big trouble.
HOWARD SOKOL, DUNWOODY
Informed voter not enough in healthy democracy
In lamenting what has happened to American-led global health initiatives under the Trump administration, former CDC director Bill Foege correctly notes that we are all at fault for the current predicament (“Incompetent, uninformed approach to USAID is a ‘national crime’,” May 14). While he makes this point in passing, its significance should not go unnoticed.
Whether we are among the so-called conservatives, who seem to think no cost is too high as long as it means irritating the right people, or identify with those progressives who cannot bring themselves to vote for anybody who is not completely aligned with some supposedly pure vision of how the world should be, there is indeed much blame to go around for our present-day political situation.
Maybe it’s time that we realize simply being an informed voter is not enough for our system of government to work. Ultimately, in a healthy democracy, there can be no substitute within the electorate for emotional maturity and actually having realistic expectations.
SANJAY LAL, STOCKBRIDGE
Everyone should have access to medical care
Congressional Republicans and their constituents view access to medical care as a privilege rather than something everyone needs. They contrive all sorts of ways to limit people’s access to it based on various yardsticks of supposed merit.
Instead, we should just provide health care to all and move on. We can afford to do this; it’s just a matter of priority.
The impetus to not provide universal health care reminds me of England’s refusal to provide food to the Irish during the Great Famine because the prevailing wisdom was that handouts would just make the Irish lazy.
People with full mouths and unfettered access to medical care tend to have no understanding of and very little empathy with those who lack food and medical care. They are insulated by their impenetrable creed: “I’ve got mine (and I’m keeping all of it).”
DEAN POIRIER, LILBURN
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