President Donald Trump’s Education Freedom Tax Credit is a federal voucher program that states may opt into.
It works like this: Taxpayers who want to offset their federal tax burden by $1,700 can donate that money to a Scholarship Granting Organization. In turn, the organization will choose to donate to qualified families for use to pay for private or religious school tuition.
Public school parents may also use the funds for resources like tutoring or after-school programming.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she will likely be opting New York state into the tax credit once federal regulations are finalized.
The final regulations are due within the next few days.
Here’s what they look like now.
“Governor Hochul’s priority is making sure every student receives an education that best meets their needs, which is why she wants the federal scholarship tax credit to benefit all New York students,” said Jonah Allon, Hochul’s deputy communications director. “These credits have the potential to expand academic opportunity for public and private school students across our state without diverting resources from public schools or state and local budgets. All stakeholders should work together to ensure this program can be implemented to maximize benefits for all New York schools, including our public schools.”
While New York State United Teachers, the teachers’ union, is strongly against the idea, another advocacy group, Teach Coalition, is fully on board, with one caveat.
Teach Coalition CEO Sydney Altfield told Capital Tonight that if regulations are released and public schools cannot benefit from the tax credit, she won’t be advocating for them.
“I believe that no child should be left behind and that means public school students, that means non-public school students, and this is an opportunity to help the entire ecosystem,” Altfield told Capital Tonight. “It is incumbent on Gov. Hochul and all governors to opt into this.”
Capital Tonight discussed the issue with New York State United Teachers earlier this month, you can watch that interview here.
Additionally, Capital Tonight reached out for comment from NYSUT:
“Public dollars belong in public schools. Vouchers — by any name — take money away from neighborhood schools that serve 90 percent of New York’s children, and hand it to private institutions that don’t answer to the public. We’ve seen what vouchers do in other states. New York doesn’t need to make the same mistake,” said NYSUT president Melinda Person.
