Addressing the tuition crisis

Part two in a series on the financing

of yeshiva and day school tuition

By Malka Eisenberg

As families face escalating prices of utilities, food and fuel, the added burden of the annual yeshiva tuition bill has brought some people to the breaking point.

“The pot is at the boiling point,” declared Jonathan Isler, a Five Towns resident and a proponent of tuition reform. “The lid is going to fall off and the pot will overflow.”

Presenting an extensive assessment of possible solutions to the tuition crisis, Isler, vice president of investments at Stifel, Nicolaus and Co. in Hewlett, advocates dealing with the issues in a variety of ways.

“There isn’t one answer,” he said. “We have to work multi-channels at one time.”

One method that has already started to bear fruit is the bipartisan TEACH-NYS coalition. Established four years ago, its goal is to garner state aid for private schools and tuition paying families. “It’s a coalition of Jewish, Catholic and Independent schools that urge the State to fund private education in constitutionally permissible ways,” explained Sam Sutton, vice president of TEACH-NYS. “Former Governor Spitzer said that it doesn’t seem fair that non-public school students make up 15 percent of school age children in New York State and yet receive less than one percent of state funding. We have to get the government to support private school education.”

Sutton noted that the responsibility should be a joint effort of the Rabbis and lay leaders of the community. “ It’s a great thing to write about,” he remarked, “but nobody gets up and does anything. The rich support ‘their’ schools which is a serious charity, but are doing nothing regarding the overall situation and that’s frustrating.”

“We have to change the way New York State thinks about private education,” Sutton continued, expanding upon the belief that every dollar that goes to private schools hurts the public schools. He also stressed the importance of being politically active by voting and contributing to politicians who support Jewish communal causes, such as the value of private education.

With 100,000 children in yeshivas and day schools in New York State, the Jewish community on its own was unable to solve this problem.

“We realized that we needed to partner up with other communities to have a bigger say in the legislative process,” observed David Greenfield, the founding director of TEACH-NYS. “The biggest challenge of securing government funding for parents of yeshiva students was the opposition of the teachers’ unions. The United Federation of Teachers advocate under one umbrella. We were doing our own thing and were not working together. We spent that summer reaching out to Catholic organizations and Jewish and independent schools. We are now working together under the TEACH-NYS umbrella to advocate for private school children.”

Teach-NYS has arranged $600 million in annual perpetual tax credits for families with school-aged children, and has increased New York State’s annual allocation for non-public school mandate services from $87.5 million to $142.4 million, a 63 percent increase. The coalition has also secured $6.2 million for computers for non-public school children.

In their statement of purpose they declare the goal of attaining funding from state government to “provide relief for parents and families with children in non-public schools. Parents are struggling and need help paying private-school tuition but don’t know that state government can be part of the solution.”

Some of their initiatives include full state tax deductibility of education expenses as well as an education tax credit for families that don’t benefit from deductions, funding for teacher and student support services, full reimbursement for mandates and participation in state programs and a tax credit for corporate and individual donations to qualified education programs.

TEACH-NYS focuses on “increasing their odds of success by strength in numbers,” added Greenfield. “We ask for a piece of the pie and the worst case scenario is we get some crumbs.”

An an example, he cited an instance in which they wanted to deduct the cost of tuition from taxes, which was rejected, but they did get funding for mandated services.

“They take a duel approach,” he stressed. “That’s the key to resolving the tuition crisis. We help the parents and help the schools, but we don’t always get money for both. We got a tax break for the parents one year and one year we got computers for the schools. The parents are struggling and the schools are struggling as well.”

Since it is a grassroots organization, the effort needs support from different parties to ensure success. One way to increase involvement is to register and vote. If elected officials know that they are being held accountable, then they will respond, explained Greenfield.

“It’s a communal crisis and the government has to do its fair share,” Greenfield added. “The government is the people. If we elect officials that represent our community’s interests, we will be able to resolve many of the community’s problems.”

“This is the beginning of a process,” said Sutton. “The gains are relatively small to the yeshivas now but over time if we support the politicians and vote we can have a tremendous influence long term.”