Teachers’ unions across the country have spent months fighting the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Program (FSTC), which would create tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships for students over the next decade. But a recent poll from EdChoice, a pro-school-choice organization, indicates that most public school teachers support the program.
The poll puts the unions at odds with their millions of members. As over 30 states have opted into the tax credit—including bright-blue New York—the question remains: when will the unions get on board?
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The poll asked a nationally representative sample of more than 1,000 teachers about their union affiliation, their support for the new program, and what they have heard about it. Support for the FSTC among teachers is high, with 70 percent in favor. But it’s slightly higher among union-member teachers: 71 percent.
Notably, however, only 23 percent of teachers said they had heard “a great deal” or “a lot” about the program, compared with 31 percent of parents. That’s a problem. Ideally, teachers could be ambassadors for the FSTC, encouraging parents to donate to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) that support public school students, in turn helping the kids whom they both care about.
Perhaps they don’t know much, however, because the largest teachers’ unions have campaigned against the FSTC. Rather than informing members about the program—and helping them get dollars to their students—they’ve tried to stop the flow of money. The unions keep insisting that the program is a “voucher” and refuse to explain to their members that it could benefit their students.
At an event last month, Kim Anderson, executive director of the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA), said that the union opposes the program because it is “$50 billion directed toward private schools as opposed to already under-resourced public schools.” In reality, we don’t yet know which SGOs will be most successful in raising funds, or where those dollars will flow. The best way to prevent most of these funds from going to private school scholarships is for the union to organize its members to support SGOs focused on public schools.
Though passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president, FSTC is not a partisan program. New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently opted in to it and has encouraged labor leaders to promote it for public school students. In Colorado, which has also opted in, the Denver Public Schools Foundation is launching a scholarship granting organization “[w]ith the full backing of the school district” to support public school students. These efforts could spread across the country if the teachers’ unions stop focusing on opposing the program and instead work to ensure that public schools get a large share of the scholarships.
Princess Moss, the new president of the NEA, said recently that the union was “not aligning ourselves with a political party.” To demonstrate that nonpartisanship, her union could share more information with its almost 3 million members about how the FSTC could offer tutoring, special-education services, books, uniforms, and other educational services to students.
The EdChoice poll shows that NEA members are the least informed about the new FSTC: only 20 percent of their members heard “a great deal” or “a lot” about the program, versus 33 percent of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members and 44 percent of Association of American Educators (AAE) members. The NEA represents the largest teaching force in the nation; it should make its members ambassadors, not opponents, of dollars for students.