The Albany Times Union has published a letter to the editor from CSF President Darla M. Romfo supporting the proposed Education Tax Credit, which was recently passed by the New York Senate and included in Governor Cuomo’s budget.
In her letter, written in response to an editorial in the paper, Ms. Romfo argued that the tax credit would allow CSF and other scholarship organizations to provide more scholarships for low-income children, putting them on the path to a successful future.
You can read the letter online or pasted below:
The Times Union’s editorial board called an effort to provide low-income children with an opportunity to receive a solid education an “unnecessary fight” (“Lessons learned, and not,” Jan. 15). The editorial misses the point that the state is responsible for educating its children, not just funding public schools. Plans to fix failing schools don’t help children trapped in those schools today.
The governor’s proposed $150 million tax credit scholarship program helps these children and not benefactors. The benefactors must part with their money either way. The tax credit program encourages donors to direct their tax dollars toward private, charitable contributions funding scholarships as well as donations to public schools. The program’s cost represents a drop in the bucket compared with the $23.5 billion the state spent on pre-K through 12th-grade education last year (the highest ever), which Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposes to increase again.
Scholarships offered by the Children’s Scholarship Fund are empowering more than 10,000 low-income children in New York state to attend a school chosen by their parents. These families live at or below the poverty line, and the tuitions at the schools they choose average less than $5,000, a fraction of the per-pupil spending in our public schools.
The program works. In New York City, 94 percent of CSF alumni graduated high school on time in 2015, compared to the city’s on-time graduation rate of 67.2 percent. Of those CSF alumni, 90 percent are enrolled in college.
The tax credit scholarship would empower even more families to choose a school that meets their children’s needs. These children deserve an education – and that is a fight well worth fighting.
Darla M. Romfo
President & COO
Children’s Scholarship Fund
New York