The Editor,
Re. “Solution: Let money follow the students” (Letters, The Tri-City News, July 22).
It is disturbing to read letter writer M.D. Sund’s perspective regarding taxpayer funding of public and private schools.
As a taxpayer whose children are well out of the public school system, I continue to gladly pay my portion of public school taxes. My taxes also go to health care, public infrastructures (roads, utilities, police, fire, etc.) as well as myriad other governmental services, resources and structures, whether I personally have use for them or not.
That is the cost of being part of a civil, caring, forward-thinking society.
In fact, I prefer not to call it a “cost” of being a part of society but a privilege. The mandate of B.C. public schools is to ensure that every child has support to reach his/her potential to become the best citizen they can be. Yes, there seems to be a “never-ending problem of funding the public system” because we should always be striving to improve learning conditions. Our world is ever-changing and our excellent education system must always be changing to keep up with the world.
Families that wish to leave the public school system and have the financial resources, of course, may opt to enrol their children in private educational institutions.
But the private system may well have difficulty managing to “keep a balanced budget… and successfully self-fund[ing] all building projects” without the millions of taxpayer dollars going to them annually.
Our public schools will have more success balancing budgets when tax dollars currently going to private schools are redirected back to public education.
Jennie Boulanger, Coquitlam
