Common Core support is tanking
In response to “Common Core was Ga.-led” (Opinion, Oct. 4) Jay Bookman’s depiction of Common Core as being Georgia-born and Georgia-loved omits an awful lot. He asserts that “most” Common Core-trained Georgia teachers enthusiastically support it. His evidence is a 4,000-teacher “survey.” It would be reasonable to assume some teachers would not have felt secure enough in their jobs to express criticisms. In any event, a look at data in other states shows teacher support for Common Core tanking.
A poll of 27,000 Tennessee teachers last month by the Tennessee Consortium on Research, Evaluation, and Development found 53 percent favoring abandonment of Common Core, and another 13 percent wishing to delay implementation. A recent national poll by Education Next, a journal published by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, found 40 percent of teachers opposed to Common Core, up from just 12 percent who said they were opposed in 2013.
It’s difficult to believe opinion among Georgia teachers could be trending in the opposite direction. Someone should ask them in confidence and objectively report the results.
ROBERT HOLLAND, THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
Recycling jobs not an economic benefit
I am very receptive to market-based recycling strategies, but I can’t accept Dr. Bucknall’s implied assertion that “1.4 million new jobs in recycling” is necessarily an economic benefit (“What to do with trash?” Atlanta Forward, Oct. 8). Someone has to pay and, therefore, consume less of something else. A rough cost quantification, at a $35,000 average annual labor cost and a 40/60 ratio of labor to all other costs, is $122.5 billion a year, or $1,580 a year for a family of four. It’s hard to imagine benefits equal to that cost. I suspect that San Francisco, with a median household income 60 percent higher than Atlanta, is to a considerable extent purchasing a public luxury good.
ALAN GAY, ATLANTA
Arts should qualify for state funding
I read about the closure of Georgia Shakespeare with dismay (“Stifled by debt, Georgia Shakespeare closes,” Living, Oct. 9). One of the reasons my wife and I relocated to the Atlanta area 10 years ago was for the many arts and cultural activities the city offered. Now we watch as the ASO remains silent, local theater groups close or struggle to survive, and now, Georgia Shakespeare closes. Our Atlanta community is made poorer in spirit and fact with each of these losses. As your article pointed out, Georgia is the worst in the nation for state funding for the arts. In this election year, I hope that the candidates will make clear their position on arts funding. It will be a major factor in who gets my vote.
RALPH DAVIS, NEWNAN
Stop blaming poor for their poverty
It is not often I read an editorial and wonder: Do I live in the same world as this guy? (“Build workforce, not welfare,” Atlanta Forward, Oct. 9). I found it odd that Sen. John Albers had to keep stating how compassionate he is. It is as if he is trying to convince himself. There are three applicants for every job out there, so it’s not like when he worked multiple jobs. There were lots of jobs to be had then.
He also makes it seem like getting food stamps is some cakewalk when, in fact, due to grossly inadequate funding by the state, people trying to apply for or renew benefits were met with hours of hold time and benefits cut off. Albers has no problem with corporate welfare and is very giving of tax cuts for those who are well off. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. How about dealing with that rather than scapegoating the poor?
SCOTT PRESSMAN, ATLANTA
