Readers write

Trump policies will infiltrate local school boards

(President Donald) Trump is dismantling the Department of Education step by step, with the intent of giving more control to the states. The One Big Beautiful Bill guts the department by canceling billions already allocated for teacher training and by freezing support for ESL, special education, Title IX and many other programs.

Local school boards will now have more control over the various programs. Citizens are encouraged to run for school boards, and are easily elected because of limited knowledge of the candidates and low turnout. Now MAGA loyalists are using this strategy nationwide, in large and small school districts, to implement Trump’s policies.

According to the Georgia School Board Association, local boards have a lot of power. They choose the superintendent and establish academic curricula and textbooks used. Now, boards are wreaking havoc on fact-based science and accurate history. The average term is four years, and without term limits, members can serve indefinitely.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is allowing Trump to proceed with dismantling the Department of Education. According to the AJC Aug. 15 article, “the future of our schools is the future for our country.”

SANDIE WEBB, DECATUR

Federal cuts hurt state’s most vulnerable children

A recent letter-writer celebrated the vote to release the Epstein files as a sign that Congress is ready to take a strong stand against pedophilia. On the same day, an article on page 2 records that Georgia is ending multiple programs for supporting children in foster care, children with a history of unsafe situations. These cuts are coming because of the shutdown and withdrawal of federal funding.

This is the real story. If we want to be a community that supports children and families — foster, biological or adoptive — we should be keeping these programs for foster families. Releasing the Epstein files is a gesture; it is the drop in support for children living today in Georgia that shows who we really are as a community, abandoning the children who need our help.

AMY DURRELL, ATLANTA

Tariffs erode US presence in world market

Trump doesn’t get it. The U.S. no longer dominates the world’s trade markets. We are now just one of several big dogs on the street.

Thus, tariffs and other restrictions on goods and services originating abroad simply do not frighten the rest of the world. Instead of bowing to our “Trump-proclaimed” dominance in the marketplace, other big dogs (and a lot of wannabes) invoke their own “tariffs” and/or seek, obtain or develop alternative markets for their goods and services. So, for us, just about everything costs more while choices go down.

The economic policies of the current administration, blindly applied by a tame Congress, ignore reality and erode our presence in the world market. As others have said, if you do not lead the pack, all views are the same.

DONALD WEISSMAN, EVANS

New passport rule hurtful to transgender people

The New York Times reported on Nov. 17, “The Trump administration has said that the U.S. passports of transgender people must now reflect the sex on their original birth certificate, reversing a decades-old policy.”