LETTER: School taxes are everyone’s responsibility

In his Aug. 26 letter, Carmine A. DiFazio suggested that parents who do not send their kids to public school should perhaps get a refund of their annual school tax payments. My wife and I have lived in Las Vegas for 31 years and paid our share of school taxes. We have never had a child in the public school system. Should we get a refund? No.

Part of a healthy democracy is that all citizens pay taxes to support the operations of the government even if they do not directly utilize particular public services. Education is an important function of government to assure that future voters know how to read and, we hope, how to interpret what they read. I definitely do not always agree with what the public educational system is doing, but I still feel that it is my duty as a citizen to support our public schools.