New York City
Teachers Unions Oppose Trump School Vouchers, Rich New Yorkers Already Claimed The Credit Twice
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
ALBANY, N.Y.: New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that the state will participate in the Trump administration's school choice program, making New York the latest state to join an initiative that teachers unions have described as an existential threat to public education and that private school development offices have described as Q4.
The program allows taxpayers to receive credits for donating to both public and private educational organizations, a structure critics say is designed to redirect money away from public schools and proponents say is designed to give families options, and which accountants say is designed to be used by people who were already donating to private schools before anyone called it a policy.
Hochul's announcement came over the objections of the state teachers union, the state Board of Regents, her own education commissioner, and an unspecified number of senior aides who reportedly spent August preparing a very different press release.
"This is about giving every New York family a real choice," Hochul said at a press conference, using the word choice in a way that two different people in the same room understood to mean two completely different things.
The United Federation of Teachers called the decision a betrayal, a giveaway, and a first step toward the collapse of public education in the state, in that order, in a single press release issued before lunch.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the move would "hollow out" public schools, which is what the union has said about every school policy introduced since 1987, some of which it turned out were bad.
Under the program, a family donating ten thousand dollars to a private school scholarship fund would receive a state tax credit, reducing their tax liability, meaning the public effectively subsidizes the donation, meaning the public is now funding the schools that do not admit the public's children, which several economists have described as a fun sentence.
Participation is voluntary. Analysts estimate the credit will be used predominantly by households already writing large checks to private institutions, with a smaller share going to families who genuinely need it and a medium share going to people who do not need it but filled out the form correctly.
Public school advocates noted that New York's public schools face a projected budget shortfall next year. Hochul's office noted that the program is fully funded by tax credits rather than direct appropriations, which is a different sentence that means the same thing.
The governor's office did not specify how much the program is expected to cost the state, describing the figure instead as dynamic, which is what budgets are called when nobody has finished the math.
The state Legislature, which had not been consulted, responded with a statement describing itself as deeply concerned, which is what it says when it has not decided yet whether to be angry.
New York joins over thirty other states in the program. Several of those states have reported that the credits are overwhelmingly claimed by higher-income households. The Trump administration called this evidence of broad participation.
Classes resume in September.
The story we are making fun of: https://gothamist.com/news/ny-will-opt-in-trumps-school-choice-program-hochul-says