More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson urged Americans to "educate and inform the whole mass of the people" because "they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." The idea, not unique to him, is that popular governance depends on a literate voting public, conversant in the issues of the day and capable of making reasonable decisions in its own self-interest, whether that interest be collective or individual.
How exactly to get that done, however, has never been obvious. I doubt, for example, that Jefferson, who was a staunch defender of state power, would have supported federally mandated or federally funded schools. He did found the University of Virginia, a public institution, and he also supported the idea of very basic publicly-funded education for everyone. After three years of free schooling, though, Jefferson would have required students' families to pay for the rest.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo proposed earlier this month that the state provide tax breaks to help families fund private education. According to one source, "in New York City, 242,000 students attended nonpublic schools, 19 percent of the student population." Of those, many go to "elite," very expensive schools, like Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, Dalton in Manhattan, or Horace Mann in the Bronx. For most people, these school are far too expensive to contemplate, and it does not seem that Cuomo's proposal would provide enough money to pay all of the $30,000 tuitions involved.
The question is, then, whether Cuomo's idea would help further the project urged by Jefferson so long ago. His motivation, he said, stemmed from the fact that “there are some areas, frankly, where the public schools are not places where you would want to send your children ... Sending your child to one of these failing public schools is in many ways condemning your child to get a second-class education.” In that case, he figures, the state should support parents' efforts to get their kids out of bad schools and into better ones.
On its face, however, I don't see how this would help. Would more people find private schools available to them as a result of this tax break, or would the same wealthy, well-connected families simply double their benefits by saving the money required to insulate their children from the very masses Jefferson was most concerned about?
The teachers' unions are pretty sure it's the latter: “We respect parents’ decisions to send their children to private or religious schools, but they shouldn’t ask taxpayers to subsidize those personal choices,” Mr. Korn said. “What’s next, tax credits for parents who want to golf at country clubs instead of municipal courses?”
http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2013/07/10/weiner-would-give-private-schools-equal-standing-at-city-doe/#.VV8hSShiF7N
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