Federal scholarship tax credit is waiting. But state leaders have to opt in.

At a time when Rhode Island leaders are constantly searching for new resources, the state is on the verge of sending hundreds of millions of dollars out of Rhode Island and into the federal treasury.

The money in question comes from a new federal scholarship tax credit program that Congress recently enacted. The program gives taxpayers a simple choice: instead of sending up to $1,700 of their federal tax liability to Washington, they may redirect those funds to nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island that support K-12 students.

Those organizations can fund tutoring, special education services, summer enrichment, after-school programs, and scholarships. Students attending district schools, charter schools, private schools, and other educational settings can benefit. The program does not require Rhode Island to spend a single additional state tax dollar. It does not reduce state education funding. It simply creates a mechanism through which over $285 million in federal tax dollars that would otherwise go to Washington can instead support students here at home.

Yet rather than embrace this opportunity, Rhode Island’s political leadership has moved in the opposite direction. The General Assembly recently passed legislation making it harder to opt the state into the program. Gov. Dan McKee inexplicably signed the legislation even though it stripped him of his power. McKee’s main Democratic challenger, Helena Foulkes, went even further; she announced that as governor, she would opt out altogether and allow the money to go to Washington.

Think about what that means. If Rhode Island opts in, students can benefit. If Rhode Island opts out, the money does not remain available for public education. It simply goes to the U.S. Treasury. The practical consequence of Rhode Island leaders’ decisions is that our students will find it harder to access the additional educational support they need. 

Why would Democrats take positions that make so little sense to the average voter? The answer is that they are not primarily responding to average voters, they are responding to the demands of the teachers unions. The cost of disappointing families is diffuse whereas the cost of crossing teachers unions is immediate. It is politically safer to disappoint families than to challenge one of the party’s most powerful interest groups. And so, Democrats fall in line.

Throughout this debate, teachers unions have described the federal scholarship tax credit as a “voucher” program. That characterization is misleading. The truth is that the program does not reduce public education funding by a single dollar. Yes, the program allows individuals to contribute private dollars to provide scholarships to kids for private school tuition; it also allows for individuals to give to a wide range of supports that will benefit students attending traditional public schools. The program would constitute millions of new dollars going towards K-12 education and public school students stand to be its biggest beneficiaries. Nonetheless, teachers unions have opposed it because the money would flow directly to nonprofit organizations, not to the traditional school districts where they work. 

Why would Democrats take positions that make so little sense to the average voter? The answer is that they are not primarily responding to average voters, they are responding to the demands of the teachers unions.

None of this is to suggest that teachers unions should not advocate for their interests. They should, just as business associations advocate for businesses and environmental groups advocate for environmental causes. The problem begins when elected officials stop distinguishing between the interests of an organized group and the public interest itself. In Rhode Island, that line has collapsed. Rhode Island Senate President Valarie Lawson, an East Providence Democrat, is also the president of one of the state’s largest teachers unions. The same person. The most powerful figure in one chamber of the legislature simultaneously collects a six-figure salary from the most influential interest group in education. One need not question anyone’s motives to recognize the problem. 

The state’s treatment of the federal scholarship tax credit is merely the latest example of an education agenda increasingly defined not by the needs of kids, but by the interests of teachers unions: a moratorium on charter school growth, greater job protections for teachers, and more money for more of the same. Meanwhile, student outcomes remain alarming.

In Providence, only 3.8% of 12th graders at traditional schools can do math at grade level. Consider what that number would mean anywhere else. If only 3.8% of fires were successfully extinguished, we would demand fundamental change. In education however, the response is often the same: more money, fewer alternatives, less accountability, and more consideration for the existing system than for the children trapped within it.

The federal scholarship tax credit represents one of the largest new opportunities for K-12 education funding in years. Reasonable people can debate its design, its safeguards, and how scholarship-granting organizations should be regulated. Reasonable people can also disagree on whether they wish to support private school education. Those are legitimate policy debates, but they are not the choice facing Rhode Island. The choice is whether to create an opportunity to keep hundreds of millions of dollars to help kids here at home or to send those resources to Washington instead.

Why should Rhode Island students lose access to tutoring, special education services, summer enrichment, SAT preparation, and scholarships? Rhode Islanders deserve an answer. Until a convincing answer is offered, our leaders should reconsider the positions they have taken. 

This opinion piece was first published in The Rhode Island Current.

Jorge Elorza is the former mayor of Providence and now CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee that advocates for any educational tool that helps kids thrive.