Why Are Some States Opposing Tuition Assistance?

When my daughter Alisa was four years old, she announced that she was going to a Jewish school.

It was not a suggestion.

Until then, our family had followed a fairly typical American Jewish path. But Alisa had other ideas. Her insistence on attending a Jewish school changed the direction of her life and, ultimately, the direction of our entire family.

What Alisa could not possibly have understood at four years old was the bill that came with her declaration.

Anyone raising children in the Orthodox community understands exactly what I mean.

Yeshiva tuition is not simply another household expense. For many families, it is the household expense. Add tuition for three, four or five children and the numbers can be staggering. Families postpone buying homes. Parents drive older cars. Vacations disappear. Grandparents help. Mothers and fathers work longer hours.

And still, many families struggle.

All because they want their children to receive a Jewish education.

We Jews spend an extraordinary amount of time talking about Jewish continuity. We commission studies on assimilation. We hold conferences on Jewish identity. We worry about whether young Jews feel connected to Israel, whether they understand Jewish history and whether they will raise Jewish children.

Then, when parents seek an intensive Jewish education for their children, we hand them a tuition bill that can exceed the cost of college.

Something is wrong with this picture.

That is why the new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit should be receiving far more attention throughout the American Jewish community.

Beginning in 2027, taxpayers will be able to receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for contributions to qualifying scholarship-granting organizations. Those organizations can provide scholarships for eligible K-12 educational expenses, including private and religious school tuition.

There is a catch: A state must participate.

Florida is in. Colorado is in. New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, has said her state will participate.

But New Jersey, Maryland and California – three states with substantial Jewish populations and thousands of children attending Jewish day schools and yeshivot – remain on the sidelines.

Why?

In New Jersey, Gov. Mikie Sherrill says her administration will “evaluate” the program after federal regulations are finalized.

Evaluate what?

The program does not require New Jersey to take a dollar from its public-school budget. It does not require Trenton to raise taxes. It does not close a public school or fire a teacher. It allows taxpayers to voluntarily contribute to scholarship-granting organizations and receive a federal tax credit.

New Jersey families are already paying some of the highest property taxes in America, much of it to support public education. Yeshiva and day-school parents pay those taxes and then write tuition checks that can reach tens of thousands of dollars per child.

What exactly is New Jersey waiting for?

The same question should be asked of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

Maryland is home to a large and growing Orthodox community, particularly in the Baltimore area. Jewish families there face the same tuition pressures as families in Teaneck, Lakewood and the Five Towns. Their children attend schools that teach mathematics and science, but also Torah, Hebrew, Jewish history and a connection to Israel.

If Gov. Moore believes those families should not benefit from the federal program, he should explain why.

And then there is California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent years presenting himself as a national Democratic leader. California is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the world outside Israel. Los Angeles alone has a vast network of Jewish schools serving families across the religious spectrum.

Why should those families be denied access to scholarship assistance that families in Florida may receive?

This is where Democratic governors need to decide whether they represent families or teachers’ unions.

I say that as a registered Democrat.

Supporting public education does not require a governor to block a voluntary federal tax-credit program that could help parents educate their children. Kathy Hochul apparently understands that. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis understands it.

Why don't Sherrill, Moore and Newsom?

The Orthodox Union's Teach Coalition understands the stakes. It has launched a national campaign, maintains a state-by-state tracker and calls the program a “defining moment for Jewish education in America.”

It is right.

But not everyone in organized Jewish life agrees.

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism continues to oppose school vouchers and tuition tax credits. Its own explanation of the Jewish divide over school choice acknowledges that Orthodox Jews support such programs because yeshivot and Jewish day schools need what it calls “a much-needed resource.”

Think about that.

The need is acknowledged.

The resource is opposed.

The Reform movement's concerns about public education and church-state separation are longstanding and sincerely held. They should not simply be dismissed. The Conservative movement has generally shared many of those concerns.

But this new federal program deserves a fresh examination rather than the recycling of decades-old talking points.

This is not a state legislature taking money out of a local school district's budget and writing a check to a yeshiva. The federal program provides a tax credit to individuals who voluntarily contribute their own money to qualifying scholarship-granting organizations.

If Jewish continuity is truly a communal priority, shouldn't that distinction matter?

A recent Washington Post column by school-choice advocate Corey DeAngelis exposed another uncomfortable part of this debate. More than half of the lawmakers supporting legislation to repeal the new federal tax credit either attended private schools themselves or sent their children to private schools.

Apparently, educational choice is acceptable when you can afford it.

For everyone else, the public school down the street will have to do.

School choice for me, but not for thee.

The federal tax credit will not solve the yeshiva tuition crisis. A $1,700 tax credit to donors is not a magic wand. Scholarship organizations must be approved. States must participate. Rules must be implemented.

But that is precisely why the Jewish community should be mobilizing now.

Governors Sherrill, Moore and Newsom should be hearing from Federations, rabbis, day-school leaders and Jewish parents. Reform and Conservative leaders should reexamine positions developed in an earlier era and ask whether reflexive opposition to school choice still serves the Jewish families they represent.

And Orthodox Jews, who know better than anyone what Jewish education costs, should make participation in this program a communal priority.

Alisa made her choice at four years old.

She could not have known where that choice would lead our family. She could not have imagined the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who would follow, or the central role that Torah, Israel and Jewish education would come to play in our lives.

One little girl wanted to go to a Jewish school.

If we really believe Jewish education matters, we should be doing everything legally and constitutionally possible to help more families make that choice.

Not just those wealthy enough to afford it.

The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror (now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon.com) and is the president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi.