Perhaps the time has finally come for help to be available to parents who wish to send their children to yeshivahs or other non-public schools? Recently, 300 interested parents, school administrators and school choice advocates gathered to discuss the ‘hot’ legislation pending in New York and New Jersey that would give taxpayers a partial tax credit for contributions to scholarship funds. While the bills fall short of giving parents an outright tax credit for tuition, it’s a start. By building up these funds, money will be available for students to attend non-public schools such as yeshivahs.

The gathering at PS 215 on Ave. S in Brooklyn was sponsored by the Sephardic Voter's League. David (Hurdle) Tawil was the emcee, accompanied by Maurice Hedaya and Ben-Gurion Matsas. The guest speakers Tim Mulhearn of United New Yorkers for Choice in Education (UNYCE), Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum of School Choice NJ and Robert Schindler, long- time school choice advocate and brother of former Mayor Brett Schindler of Jersey City, NJ, all spoke about the importance of moving this issue forward by activating a grass roots movement to put pressure on politicians to pass pending legislation. New Jersey's Urban Schools Scholarship Act (S2228) provides for some form of vouchers to be funded by tax credits granted for corporate contributions to non-profit organizations.

    Rabbi Teitelbaum urged parents and taxpayers to use their voices to help pass these bills. They will help launch the national drive for universal choice, providing for equal educational opportunity for every child in America. He stated that the Urban Scholarship Act bill has bi-partisan support, powerful political interests are preventing it from being posted in committee for a vote. However, Senate President Richard Codey can make this happen.

    Rabbi Teitelbaum handed out a phone number and encouraged the audience to call Senate President Codey and respectfully ask him to “please use his considerable influence to move the Urban Schools Scholarship Act (S2228) which is desperately needed by the children of New Jersey.” Please leave a recorded message after hours at 973-731-6770. Rabbi Teitelbaum also was encouraged by Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani who committed to champion School Choice as one of his commitments to voters.

    An article, School Vouchers Turn 50, by the late economist and Nobel Laureate, Milton Freidman, was also distributed by Rabbi Teitelbaum. Milton Freidman is widly recognized as the originator of the voucher movement. The article discussed how the results of public education are poor because government owns and operates most schools creating a monopolistic system. The article clearly sets forward how choice and competition foster incentives for “educrats” to satisfy the desires of parents, treating them like customers who have choices instead of taxpayers with no options other than mediocre or failing schools.

    Freidman also describes in the article how the teachers' unions have used their large income, estimated at more than $1.5 billion, to influence and gain a major role in the democratic party which regularly opposes vouchers in any form. To see this article you can go to www.freidmanfoundation.org.

    We must form a national voting block to move proposed legislation forward that would extend school choice as a civil rights issue so that educational funding is equitably distributed, regardless of whether a child attends public, private or religious schools.

    To learn more about what you and your friends and associates can do to help register at www.SchoolChoiceNY.org.

Written by Susan Cleary, co-founder of Parents for School Choice.