My concern is with the statement that Renee H. Jonas "is the only candidate teaching subject material measured by the FCAT." While she may be the only candidate teaching a Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test subject, FCAT material is taught by a broad spectrum of Pasco County teachers.
Social studies teachers address FCAT material from all tested areas as evidenced by some of the following examples: The geography curriculum includes physical geography and geology content connected with science FCAT. A large percentage of FCAT reading selections are geography and history related. Social studies teachers are constantly reinforcing reading comprehension and vocabulary skills to prepare students for the textual reading that they will face in testing. Writing skills are also addressed in social studies classrooms, with editorial writing, essay responses and document questions as a few examples. In teaching scale for reading maps, time lines in studying history and graphing of key information, social studies teachers are definitely "teaching subject material measured by the FCAT."
While my response to your statement focuses on social studies teachers and their curriculum because that is my field, I need to point out that there are so many other areas in schools in which FCAT-measured material is taught.
I am confident that Pasco County students who have successfully completed their FCAT would tell you that all of their teachers contributed to that success, as it is only in working together that we achieve our goal of that well-prepared and well-rounded student and citizen.
I look for a great deal more in my Pasco County School Board candidates than their connection to the FCAT, and citizens of Pasco County are smart enough to do that also.
Paula Lesko, New Port Richey
Language barrier is residents' fault
Re: Tommytown
I think it is great that these people are organizing for their neighborhood and safety. However, for them to say that Pasco County has to step up and teach its deputies Spanish so they can communicate with the mostly Spanish-speaking population is ridiculous.
They need to form a group in Tommytown to teach their residents English.
If we were to go to a foreign country and live there, we would be expected to speak its language and would have to learn it if we were going to survive and communicate. Too many people are coming to this country and expecting us to adapt to them. Well, they have it backward. In my opinion, their expectations are too high.
Jim Hoos, Hamburg, N.Y.
Private home insurers must return
The latest strategy, with respect to the homeowners insurance crisis, is aimed toward persuading private insurance carriers to return to the homeowners market and displace state-created Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which ironically filled the vacuum when the private carriers abandoned that market because of high-intensity hurricane and sinkhole claims.
There are three interested parties concerned with resolving this crisis: homeowners, who need property coverage at reasonably affordable premium rates; the insurance industry, which is in business to make a profit for its investors; and Florida, where increased homeowners' rates, along with other factors, can destabilize the housing market and disrupt the state economy as a whole.
Persuading private carriers to return to this market will probably require that their risks be limited to a degree that prospective hurricane losses based on actuarial studies will not imperil their entire asset structure, and that they obtain authorization to charge premiums commensurate with the reduced risks undertaken by them. The insurance industry can underwrite property damage claims, in compliance with prudent business standards, if, one, the risk parameters are reduced by deductibles, threshold exclusions or caps that however would relegate the homeowner to a self-insured status for damage outside those parameters; or, two, a well-funded reinsurance program is established, beyond that offered by the Florida Hurricane CAT Fund, which would protect the carriers from insolvency arising from catastrophic losses.
A plan proposed by gubernatorial candidate Rod Smith would convert Citizens Property and CAT into a new fund that would cover the first $100,000 in wind damage, with private insurers covering all other perils such as fire, liability and ostensibly sinkhole loss, plus wind damage in excess of $100,000.
Reducing the risk parameters of an insurer is not difficult. However, figuring out how to indemnify the homeowner for damages not covered by all of those gaps, deductibles, threshold exclusions and caps is another matter entirely. Is coverage in those areas to be provided by some state entity that will also underwrite a reinsurance fund to bail out insurers in the event that catastrophic losses jeopardize their solvency or threaten them with bankruptcy? If so, is it contemplated that the cost by which to create and maintain such a state entity be financed by premium surcharges and assessments that will be passed along to the homeowners as part of the concept?
To obviate the need for such surcharges and assessments and facilitate the availability of reasonably affordable coverage, the Legislature will have to decide whether public health, safety and welfare require the state to consider tax-financed subsidies for a supplemental insurance program of that magnitude.
The Legislature nibbled at this somewhat by appropriating $715-million to mitigate the $1.7-million deficit of Citizens Property and by providing as much as $5,000 in matching funds to homeowners to strengthen their home against hurricanes. How to finance any such subsidies will require a study unto itself and may require a special tax that would distribute the burden across the sales or ad valorem tax bases throughout the state.
In the final analysis, for this plan to be tenable, the insurance carriers must have some reasonable expectation of selling a product that will deliver the benefits to the policyholder when needed and, at the same time, be profitable for their investors. Whether the federal government is willing to become involved in underwriting hurricane losses remains to be seen, but, even if it eventually transpires, a great deal of time will elapse between now and then.
Campaign speeches on the stump, expressed in terms of abstract rhetoric, is of little assistance to average homeowners in ascertaining, in concrete terms, the financial demands that they must shoulder in making any such plan tenable.
In that regard, it would be helpful if the state and the insurance industry, working together, would inform the homeowners the extent and limitations of the policies that would be written by the insurers under such a concept; the anticipated premiums for such coverage including compensation for sinkhole coverage; the contemplated surcharges and assessments that homeowners would have to pay to finance coverage for such gaps, exclusions, caps and reinsurance plans if funding is not provided from general revenues by Florida.
