Readers Write: Feb. 13

Families should have rights in education

Education Secretary Betsy Devos’ job is to help provide education for children who want to learn: not deal with poverty and family stability. There are vulnerable students of course, but there are students who are held back because of efforts to make sure every student is on the same page. Children who can’t speak English and children of poverty need special schools that will allow them to move at a slower pace. Empowered families want more rights in how their children are educated and that’s what DeVos is about. Families who care nothing about their children and only want a place to park them should not be able to hinder the education of ambitious children with supportive parents.

JACK FRANKLIN, CONYERS

Expanding Medicaid would benefit Ga.

Georgia could lose $20 million if the ACA is repealed, but keeping it and expanding Medicaid would economically boost the whole state, including rural Georgia. Per the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, over a period of 10 years, Medicaid expansion would create tens of thousands of new jobs throughout the state as well as billions of dollars in new economic activity and increased tax collections, a big bang for every buck invested at both state and local levels. Not to mention that hospitals wouldn’t need to close and that half a million more Georgians would have health care. As home to one of the highest uninsured rates in the country, and with a rural unemployment rate higher than the state’s overall 5.4 percent, Georgia can’t afford not to take advantage of expanded Medicaid. The solution is here and it’s a no-brainer; Republicans are simply too arrogant and unfeeling to implement it.

MICHAELENE GORNEY, JOHNS CREEK