Last Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that New York will officially opt in to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program (FSTC), giving millions of New Yorkers the ability to make tax-deductible contributions that will go to scholarships for New York students. Hochul’s announcement makes New York the 31st state to opt in and her the second Democratic governor to do so.
Hochul deserves credit for holding firm as New York’s teachers’ unions and their allies waged a fierce campaign to keep the state out of the FSTC program. We should hope other blue-state governors will demonstrate the same courage.
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Under the program, tax-deductible contributions go to Scholarship Granting Organizations, which can then give scholarships directly to families. Those families can in turn use them to transfer to their children to private schools or supplement their public education with eligible expenses such as tutoring, special education services, uniforms, or books. All federal taxpayers can contribute to the program, but students can receive the scholarships only if their governors opt in. If Hochul hadn’t opted in, for example, then New Yorkers’ money could have gone to scholarships for Texas students—but not for New York students.
Though most eligible students remain enrolled in public schools, the unions spent months running ads and organizing rallies against the program. They are plainly terrified of giving families the financial power to make educational decisions for their kids.
Parents already have this power in the more than 30 states that offer some state-run school choice program. Until now, parents in New York did not. Thanks to Hochul, New York families will for the first time be able to decide for themselves the best way to educate their children.
Catholic, Jewish, and other religious schools stand to benefit as well. This is the first program New York has allowed that helps cover the tuition in religious schools. That’s a lifeline for the many New York families for whom Catholic schools provide one of the few feasible alternatives to their zoned public school. Most families can’t afford to move to a better district or pay private school tuition. And state law caps the number of charter schools that operate in New York City, with thousands of children on waitlists.
The benefits for these and other families are likely to be substantial. The FSTC could raise more than $1 billion, depending on how many New York taxpayers decide to contribute. Even so, that’s a small sum compared with New York State’s nearly $40 billion education budget. And the FSTC program will not divert any funds from state and local sources.
Unfortunately, not all state officials showed Hochul’s resolve. Some lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, joined the New York State United Teachers in calling on Hochul not to opt-in.
It’s disturbing that so many elected officials are afraid of New York families gaining control of less than 2.5 percent of the state education budget—and even more alarming that they would side with the teachers’ union, thereby letting FSTC dollars flow to other states’ children. It suggests they care more about good relations with the teachers’ union than about New York families and students.
Fortunately, Hochul has now demonstrated where her allegiances lie. As she said, “I’m not going to leave money on the table when it could help our kids.” If Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey don’t opt in to the program, New York will gladly take their donations and spend them on our neediest students.