Eliminate multiple school districts
Dan Domenech, executive director for the National School Superintendents Association, is blowing smoke (“Schools crack down on enrollment fraud,” News, Dec. 14). School enrollment fraud is an indictment of our under-performing school systems, not the parents in search of better opportunity for their children. Until administrators achieve consistent performance in schools across the metropolitan area, parents should be free to enroll where they choose. It’s time to create school districts independent of county lines or politics — one large metro school district and chieftain in charge of maximizing the education of all our children. Each county would contribute funding in proportion to the number of kids attending from their county. As long as everyone tries to protect their own little sandbox, our kids will continue to suffer.
JACOB DAVENPORT, COLLEGE PARK
Some ‘radicalized’ to gun violence
One focus of the latest terror event in San Bernardino is discovering how these two shooters became “radicalized.” The presumption is that they were normal people who were transformed into killers by watching something or listening to someone. If we believe people can be radicalized by a few months in the Middle East, then we must believe that our own children can become radicalized to gun violence by watching television shows and movies that glamorize guns and shooting people. Our children and disillusioned youth spend their entire lives learning via television that brandishing guns and shooting people is sexy, fun and a legitimate method of problem-solving. Some normal-looking young white man will likely commit the next non-terror related mass murder. In the aftermath, I hope Americans will demand to know how he was radicalized to gun violence, and not just where he found the gun.
JEFF LAHM, STONE MOUNTAIN
GOP candidates should heed climate
Recent writers ridicule thoughtful concern for warming, and Republican candidates divert attention to terrorism as an “existential threat.” If responsible, we buy insurance to protect our wives’ and kids’ futures. We even tolerate government requiring us to buy car insurance. The cost now is much less than inaction. Support the goals the EPA has set and a program recommended by such people as George Shultz, secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan — collect a carbon fee from producers, to be rebated to citizens. Warming denial? Even greed and ignorance can be represented in our democracy. Republican candidates in denial seem to favor self-interest over prudent scientific advice. It is you who will choose come November. History and your children will judge.
ROGER BUERKI, MARIETTA
