The education of New York’s schoolchildren faces an increasingly challenging and uncertain future. Too many public schools are struggling to provide our kids with the education they need to be ready for the rigors of the future — whether it’s college, jobs in the private sector or in public service, or just being good members of society.
At the same time, private and parochial schools are seeing a steady decline in enrollment because of the financial pressures that so many families face in this weak economy. This has resulted in several Catholic and other private schools closing their doors for good, even as the ones still open suffer their own financial challenges.
New Yorkers can’t just sit by and watch these challenges rob our children of productive futures. One answer is the Education Investment Tax Credit, introduced in the Legislature by Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn), a former New York City police officer, and Assemblyman Mike Cusick (D-S.I.). The bill would benefit students by creating greater incentives for charitable donations to education — a dollar-for-dollar credit on the donor’s state taxes for gifts to scholarship funds or to public schools and teacher projects.
The Education Investment Tax Credit would benefit parochial and private-school families by generating up to $150 million a year in donations for scholarship programs. The funds would support tuition assistance for children, including those of New York City police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
It would also boost funding for public schools, encouraging up to $150 million a year in new donations. Donations could be made to individual public schools, districts, pre-K programs or nonprofit education funds like New York City’s Fund for Public Schools, as well as to groups that provide art, music, tutoring, after-school and other academic programs.
This would significantly help lighten the burden on working families who confront the economic challenge of providing the best education they can for their children, many of whom will be our future police officers and other first-responders who serve and protect New Yorkers.
Another appealing aspect of the tax-credit approach is that it will generate new revenue for education without relying on the city and Albany for more aid.
The bill has passed the state Senate with broad bipartisan support, including from Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein and Democratic leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Support in the Assembly has grown to more than 100 co-sponsors, more than two-thirds of the members of that house.
It’s easy for us to embrace such a plan because it benefits all of the children of New York. That is why this bill is supported by our brothers and sisters of numerous labor unions, including the Police Conference of New York, the New York State Troopers, the New York City Firefighters, the New York State Court Officers, OPEIU (an AFL-CIO affiliate) and the Archdiocesan Federation of Catholic Teachers.
The New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association stands with Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio and other religious, community and labor leaders to urge Gov. Cuomo and the state Senate and Assembly to adopt a strong education tax-credit plan as part of the state budget this year.