More funds must be put into public schools

In regard to the #RedForEd Movement:

Business and industry, understandably, demand a well educated and trained workforce. The source of such a workforce is the public school system. The public school system not only needs funds for teacher pay, but also needs monies for books, technology, support staff, supplies, new buildings, maintenance and repairs for old buildings, and transportation among other items.

In order to pay for all of this, being it is a PUBLIC school system, taxes must be levied to raise the necessary funds. These taxes should come primarily from business and industry and from property owners who are recipients of living in a community with a well educated workforce. REGRESSIVE taxes, such as sales taxes, hurt the people on the lower end of the economic scale more than they affect more affluent members of the community. Also, heaven forbid, lotteries also hurt the poorer because they are most often the ones supporting a lottery. It is my firm belief that: • We must put more funds into our public school system.

• Every dollar that goes to a charter school is a dollar that the public system loses.

• We must raise taxes on businesses and industries in order to adequately and fairly support the schools that are producing the workforce they need. Also, property taxes need to be raised.

• This process is going to take several years to accomplish at the least as schools have been neglected for so many years.

The neglect that our public school system has endured this past generation must finally come to an end. We must work to restore public education in Arizona and throughout the United States to a level we can be proud of as a people.

REBECCA TANNER

Yuma