Andrew Cuomo has said all the right things about the abysmal state of public education in the Empire State.
He’s noted that if money were the answer, New York would be tops, because we spend more per pupil than any other state. He’s rightly diagnosed the problem as an unaccountable public monopoly. And when Mayor de Blasio last year tried to strangle high-performing charter schools by denying them space, it was Gov. Cuomo who stood up — and backed the reformers.
As good as this is, it’s not enough. Right now, a proposal in Albany will test whether the governor really means what he says. It is a proposal that would help private and parochial schools by granting a tax credit to people who contribute to scholarships for these schools.
This credit is only one way to help keep some of these schools stay alive. But if Albany doesn’t get it done this year, it will not get done at all.
Let’s put this in the proper context. In many poor neighborhoods, the only escape for some black or Latino kid trapped in a failure mill is the neighborhood parochial school, often doing heroic work for these kids on a shoestring budget.
The tax credit would do two things: First, instead of sending more money down the same rat-hole, it would help steer funds to good schools where kids are learning.
Second, if the public-school system is indeed the monopoly the governor says it is, the way to fix the problem is to attack it the way you’d attack any monopoly: by encouraging competition. The point is, New York needs more good schools, and more seats in the good schools that exist.
This credit is only one way to help keep some of these schools stay alive. But if Albany doesn’t get it done this year, it will not get done at all.
Politically, this shouldn’t be tough.
The governor says he supports it. The Senate has passed a version. In the past, of course, it never got through the Assembly, because Sheldon Silver wouldn’t let it come up for a vote — even when it had a majority of members signed on as co-sponsors. But Silver is no longer speaker.
It’s the governor’s moment — if he will seize it. And he has no excuse not to.