A Bill to Improve Educational Quality and Lower Costs in NY
 

A tax credit bill (S.2732/A.5081) is before both houses of the NYS legislature that will provide a 60% tax credit for donations to any NY public school or public school district, or to any private foundation funding scholarships for 2 or more non-public schools. Donations by individuals are limited to $10,000/year, and by corporations to $25,000/year. The aggregate amount of tax credits is limited to $200 million per year, equating to about $334 million in donations.  

This means public schools would receive $167 million in donations at a cost of $100 million in lost tax revenue. The same amount ($167 million) donated to private schools would keep many private schools from closing and enable anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 students to receive scholarships typically ranging from $2500 to $5000 to transfer from a failing public school to a private school, further saving taxpayers from $200 million to $400 million in costs, assuming $10,000 per student is saved of the approximate $18,000 average cost per NY public school student today. There are even more savings for taxpayers as a result of keeping open dozens of private schools that would have otherwise closed, with roughly half the students transferring to public schools.

 In summary, this bill results in NY state losing $200 million in tax revenue, while getting public schools $167 million in donations and reducing public school costs by $200 million to $400 million. Overall, taxpayers gain somewhere between $367 million and $567 million at a cost (i.e., loss in tax revenue) of $200 million.

 From an educational standpoint, students also win. Not only do the thousands of students who leave failing public schools win by choosing a private school, but our public schools are motivated to improve so as not to lose more students. Competition causes all students to win, since parents will be able to transfer children from schools they view as failing. And if a private school fails, the parental decision is even clearer.

 Unfortunately, both former Republican leader Joe Bruno and current Democratic leader Shelley Silver refused to even allow this bill to come to a vote, in spite of having over 20 Democrats in the Assembly and 15 Republicans in the Senate co-sponsoring the bill. Both of these politicians were intimidated by the teacher unions into stopping any vote on this bill, which is a win for both students and taxpayers. Why? Because the teacher unions (NYSUT & UFT) want our private schools to close, even though it would raise school costs and school taxes by many millions of dollars. They want to keep their monopoly and gain union jobs at the expense of students and taxpayers.

 Hopefully now, in these most difficult fiscal times, this bill will be allowed to come to a vote. If it does, and it passes, students will get a better chance at a quality education, while taxpayers will save hundreds of millions of dollars. Let’s see if Republican Senate leader Dean Skelos and Democratic Assembly leader Shelley Silver will have the courage to do the right thing and allow their members to vote on this bill.