Georgia Today: 'Woke' teacher training; Biden commutes drug sentences; Georgia scores in NFL Draft

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Monday, May 1. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, new guidelines to eliminate so-called "woke" language from teacher training programs are on the horizon. The Atlanta airport is encouraging airlines to offer more international routes from Atlanta. And we'll learn how Georgia football players fared in the NFL draft from GP's John Nelson. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

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Peter Biello: The state board that guides licensing for public educators in Georgia is considering rules that would eliminate so-called "woke" language from training programs, GPB's Orlando Montoya reports.

Orlando Montoya: The Georgia Professional Standards Commission could read programs of words like "diversity," "equity" and "inclusion" and replace them with words like "difference," "fairness" and "opportunity." The changes would apply to positions including elementary school teachers, certain specialists who teach up to 12th grade and leadership roles like principals and superintendents. It comes as debate over such language is causing controversy across the country. Former Georgia Teacher of the Year, Tracy Nance, worries the proposal represents a step backward. Georgia Federation of Teachers president Vidalia Turner says the words matter less than the care that children receive. The commission is taking public comment on the changes, with a vote expected in June. For GPB News, I'm Orlando Montoya.

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Peter Biello: Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is trying to lure back international flights While domestic travel has largely recovered from pandemic lows, international flights are down nationwide, including at ATL. They've dropped 11% since 2019 at ATL. That's according to industry analytics firm Cirium. The airport is now starting a program to offer airlines financial incentives worth up to half a million dollars each for new international routes. Cirium's Mike Arnot says ATL might target carriers to expand service to Tokyo, Beijing and Reykjavik, among other routes.

Mike Arnot: Incentives can absolutely work and the reason they work is that the economic impact of a single international flight can be huge.

Peter Biello: The airport's highest incentives target new African and Asian routes. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines recently has restarted or added new service to seven destinations, including Cape Town, Cozumel and Edinburgh. Delta's vice president of airport operations, Joe Miller, says international travel has been the last segment of the market to recover from the pandemic.

Joe Miller: The key for us here in Atlanta is continued expansion of international. That will be our engine of growth here.

Peter Biello: As of this month. The airport has 69 international routes.

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Peter Biello: Georgia tax refunds are starting to land in bank accounts. This is the second year in a row that the General Assembly has given surplus revenue back to the taxpayers in this way. The amounts vary between $250 and $500, depending on filing status. The Georgia Department of Revenue anticipates all refunds will be issued within the next eight weeks for those who filed by the April 18 deadline this year.

Caption

Gov. Brian Kemp signs the state's restrictive abortion ban in 2019.

Credit: File Photo

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Peter Biello: Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a law to establish a cold case unit within the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The legislation provides $5.4 million to create the unit. It also requires law enforcement across the state to provide the bureau with an accurate count of unsolved homicide cases and to allow families to receive timely death certificates in those cases.

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Peter Biello: President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 31 people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes who were serving time in home confinement. The White House said Friday that many would have gotten a lower sentence if they were charged with the same offense today because of changes in the laws. A commuted sentence means they'll spend less time in home confinement. Those who sentences were commuted include people convicted of drug possession in Georgia, along with several other states. They will all finish serving time June 30.

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Peter Biello: People involved in Georgia's $4 billion film industry are closely watching contract negotiations that could shut down productions with a potential writers strike this week. Atlanta area writer and casting director Chad Darnell says the last time writers went on strike in 2007, Georgia film productions were centered in Atlanta.

Chad Darnell: Back at the time, everyone was striking around the Turner Complex. That was basically the only place where we could strike. This time around, all these years later, we have substantial studios all over the state.

Peter Biello: Darnell says today he's been constantly refreshing his phones for strike news, which could come late tonight. He says even if productions have their scripts locked in, a strike's impact would be immediate.

Chad Darnell: No dialogue can be changed, no set can be changed. Nothing can be reworked in that script, once the strike goes into effect. Meetings cannot happen between agents and talent. Writers cannot have meetings with producers. Everything will come to a halt.

Peter Biello: During the last fiscal year. Georgia hosted a record 412 productions, including feature and independent films, TV shows, commercials and music videos. That's according to the Georgia Film Office.

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Peter Biello: Former Harlem Globetrotter and Chatham County commissioner Larry "Gator" Rivers has died. Chatham County Commission chairman Chester Ellis says Rivers died Saturday from cancer at the age of 73. Rivers was a sophomore on the all-Black Beach High School team that won the first Georgia High School Association basketball tournament to include Black and white players in 1967. He was an All-State player and went on to play and coach for 16 years with the Harlem Globetrotters. Rivers came home to Savannah and became a community volunteer before he was elected to the Chatham County Commission in 2020.

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Peter Biello: In the NFL draft, nearly 10% of the 259 players to get the call had ties to Georgia, and a large portion of those came from Gwinnett County. For a closer look at how Georgia players fared in the draft, we turn to Jon Nelson. He's an award-winning television journalist who's been covering high school athletics for GPB as a host, anchor and correspondent.

Jon Nelson: It's great to be back, my friend, and talking football because there is no offseason.

Peter Biello: No offseason indeed. So who among the Georgia players got drafted the quickest?

Jon Nelson: Well, you have to go to No. 3 overall. And it was Wil Anderson, the the edge rusher out of the University of Alabama, out of Hampton, Ga., down by the Speedway — played at Dutchtown. And he has turned into an absolute menace for offenses in the Southeastern Conference. Tremendous defensive player. We knew it when we covered him on Football Fridays and he's just completely evolved into this absolute, just tremendous defensive player at Alabama. Houston is one of my surprises in the overall when it comes to teams actually did some wheeling and dealing and traded to where they got the No. 2 and the No. 3 pick overall. Got a quarterback at No. 2, picked up Wil Anderson at No. 3. So you didn't have to wait long to get a Georgia influence and you didn't have to wait very long to get your surprise, as Houston pushed all of their chips into the center of the table early on.

Peter Biello: Wow. And the Eagles Thursday selected defensive tackle Jalen Carter in the NFL draft. He was involved in a crash that killed a Bulldogs teammate and recruiter earlier this year. He's going to Philadelphia now. So what do you make of this?

Jon Nelson: He is the fifth Georgia player in the last two years to make it to Philadelphia. I don't know why the general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles, Howie Roseman, feels compelled to use Athens as like the training ground for Philadelphia Eagles. But he's gotten a lot of great talent out of Athens. And Jalen Carter surprised a lot of folks that he was actually available. A lot of folks had him as the top defensive player in the draft, but he dropped to No. 9, obviously, for the reasons that you were talking about. But Philadelphia seems to be this pipeline for talent. And a lot of folks think if you can say that, you get a steal at No. 9 overall, Philadelphia got a steal in Jalen Carter and you see Jalen Carter, Kelee Ringo, a lot of talent just going from Athens. And there have been folks who have actually taken the Philadelphia Eagles logo and taken the G in Eagles and put the Georgia G there as a redesigning of the logo, just as kind of a joke to see the influence of Athens now, in Philly.

Peter Biello: Did the Eagles or anybody else say anything significant about what Jalen has has been through and whether or not that impacted this decision?

Jon Nelson: Yeah. GM Howie Roseman said that their senior advisor, that his senior advisor and chief security officer, they did a lot of work regarding Carter, did a lot of background on it. Quoting him, he said "We spent a lot of time investigating the incident, talked to Jalen about a variety of things" and again, direct quote, "we're not going to get into what we talk to our players about. That's not fair. But at the end of the day, nobody is hiding from the fact that a tragic event happened. We'll do our very best to make sure that both of these players," Carter and Nolan Smith, another teammate from Georgia, "develop every skill set they need to be successful." So they've done their due diligence, in their view, and they feel that they can help him through this and get to the next stages of both adult life as a person and as a player.

Peter Biello: And speaking of Bulldogs, let's talk quarterback Stetson Bennett. He's off to L.A. Tell me about how that turned out.

Jon Nelson: Well, the thing I thought, legitimately, I thought that he would be going to Baltimore a lot later in the draft. A lot of folks thought that he might be Day 3 or maybe even an undrafted free agent. But he goes to the Rams in a bit of a surprise.

Peter Biello: What about those Georgia players who were really hoping to be called but just didn't make it this year? There's still hope for 'em?

Jon Nelson: Absolutely. If you weren't a player that got drafted, then your phone will start ringing the second the draft is over. You will have general managers from all around the National Football League calling you, "Hey, come be a part of our undrafted free agent camp. We'll sign you a deal. You can show up in June and you can really shine to our coaches. We really like you. We just didn't get the chance to draft you. So how about you show up for our rookie minicamp and be an undrafted free agent?" Trust me, a lot of players across the country, their phones blew up the second the draft was over and they could probably pick and choose a situation that's best for them about going to the next level. What team is a good fit for me? What GM phone call sounded the best? A lot of these undrafted free agents are heading to rookie minicamp, so their dreams of chasing after life as a pro? Far from over.

Peter Biello: And so the offseason that is not really an offseason continues.

Jon Nelson: Correct! I'm turning the page now and yes we are now in May but yeah football season never ends; Peter, you know that. And I'm sorry to say that the University of North Carolina Wilmington, did not have a player drafted this year in the NFL Draft.

Peter Biello: Mentioning that because that's where I went to school. All right, Jon, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.

Jon Nelson: Any time, my friend.

Peter Biello: And that's it for today's edition of Georgia Today. Do appreciate you tuning in. It's going to be a beautiful week weather-wise in the state of Georgia. We've got sunny days for at least the first half of this week. Second half of the week, who knows? Things might change, but at least it's beautiful, I think, through Thursday. Anyway, check your local weather forecast for the details. I mention it because it's nice to take a podcast with you when you're outside, whether you're doing some gardening, walking the dog. Check out the new podcasts from GPB, A Fork in the Road and the Peach Jam podcast, a food and music podcast, respectively. You can find them at GPB.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to learn more about the news stories you heard on today's episode, you can find them at GPB.org/news. And if you've got feedback or a story suggestion for us, send it to us by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@gpb.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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