Fund scholarships, don’t pay one salary
Paul Cottle (“High-school physics at core of Florida future in aerospace,” Orlando Sentinel, Tuesday) was misguided when he recommended David Melcher call Jones High School and offer to pay the salary for a physics teacher.
What Melcher and every other business leader and corporation should do is endow a scholarship at a teachers college, such as University of Central Florida’s College of Education and Human Performance. Paying the salary of one science teacher would affect a handful of students for a short period of time. Endowing a scholarship for prospective science teachers would establish a perpetual pipeline of educators who can change the lives of tens of thousands of children as long as a university stands.
Some companies get it, Lockheed Martin among them. The Lockheed Martin/University of Central Florida Academy for Mathematics and Science, as an endowed program, will forever continue turning out math and science educators for Central Florida schools.
Mr. and Ms. CEO, if you want engineers, bankers, astronauts, entrepreneurs and scientists, start investing for the long haul in teachers at the point where they are being produced. Teaching is the profession that creates all others.
Richard Sloane Oviedo
Missing the point of Christmas
In Sunday’s Orlando Sentinel, a front-page article described how retailers are trying to maximize what is expected to be a national $107.4 billion expenditure in purchases this holiday season. On page A6, an article described the enormous homelessness crisis on the West Coast of the United States.
In Central Florida, according to a June article, it is difficult to count the number of homeless in our tri-county area, but it remains in the thousands. The article stated that 11 percent are veterans and 22 percent are children.
As the aggravating onslaught of retail advertising begins in earnest, the irony is that is is done to honor the birth of a man who was homeless and spent his life teaching the importance of caring for each other.
Spending $107.4 billion purchasing gifts misses his lessons to all of us.
Chuck Bailey Leesburg
Osceola’s decision on growth misses the mark
Members of the Osceola County Board of Commissioners don’t know what they want. With the recent vote on the three-month moratorium on development, they have indicated they want time to look at and control building, as well as create an environment for affordable housing.
Yet, basic economics tells us that regulations increase the cost to builders and owners, meaning more regulations increase cost and rent on housing. Their intentions will come with blow-back, which might lead to even less-affordable housing and an increase in price on existing housing.
The increase in valuations would increase taxes, rent and other assessments. Residents within the county already see themselves on tight budgets, and they cannot afford to pay for overregulation. This added cost could lead many to leave stable homes for an unstable motel-living lifestyle. We cannot do this to our residents.
On top of the added cost, this may not actually slow or control growth. Increased cost simply means that smaller companies that would have built smaller communities would no longer be able to build. This opens up the market for larger cookie-cutter builders.
Individuals already have a hard time buying and building homes; why make that harder? This only has the capability of stopping individuals and small builders in favor of large companies. We need to incentivize individuals to buy land and build their own homes; the way to do that is to open the market to that kind of building. Our commissioners need to understand this.
Marcos D. Marrero Kissimmee
