INTERVIEW: ‘You’re at the Table or You’re on the Menu’

By Reuvain Borchardt

Maury Litwack, founder of Teach Coalition and managing director of the Orthodox Union, discusses the Orthodox community’s legislative priorities related to education funding.

Let’s start with the federal Educational Choice for Children Act, which has been introduced by Republicans in Congress. Tell us what this bill is about.

This bill has appeared in the past, and was reintroduced in January by Senators Bill Cassidy and Tim Scott and a number of other original cosponsors. On the House side, this has been introduced by Rep. Adrian Smith and a number of other Republican members.

This would bring to the national level the kind of support for nonpublic schools that exists in states like Pennsylvania and Florida, and delivers millions of dollars annually to yeshivas and parents. If you’re reading this and you have family members in Florida, they will tell you that so many of them are getting part of their tuition paid for, because they are receiving a scholarship tax credit program in their state.

We all know friends and family who have moved to other states because they get funding from the state for nonpublic-school education, including yeshivas, and if you live in New York you’re wondering, “How is that possible?” Well, when you look at this federal bill, it’s saying, let’s bring that kind of program to the federal level. The OU is among the leaders of the effort to pass this legislation, along with our friends and colleagues at Agudath Israel and a number of school-choice organizations around the country. Earlier this week, our executive vice president, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, and Nathan Diament, executive director of the OU Advocacy Center, met with Sen. Tim Scott and other leaders of this effort to strategize on how to get the bill passed as soon as possible.

If you’re reading this and you’re saying, “I don’t want to move. I want to be able to get the programs that Pennsylvania and Florida and some other states offer their residents,” reach out to your representative in Congress, whether they’re a Democrat or Republican, and ask them to co-sponsor this bill. Because we’re going to need this to be bipartisan in order to get it done.

I presume that the public school teachers’ unions, which are very powerful political entities, oppose this.

Without looking it up, I’m assuming the teachers unions already oppose this.

Economists say that if the government starts providing funding for people to purchase something (like education) from a private entity, the latter might just raise the price. Do you fear that a result of this bill could be yeshivas raising their tuition?

If you look at the tax credit program in states where it currently exists, there are a range of outcomes. And we have to be honest with the parents about the reality, which is that in the states that currently have tax credit programs, there are some schools that have kept tuition flat, there are schools where tuition has increased, and there are schools where tuition has gone down. So it’s really dependent upon the school community.

Let’s turn to the state level now, specifically New York. For Orthodox activists in New York — and you started out in Teach NYS before going national — one of their biggest goals for years has been state assistance for tuition payments, whether in the form of tax credits or vouchers. This goal seems politically unattainable in the state with the largest yeshivah population. Is that due to the teachers’ unions fighting against any public dollars going to private schools?

I think the reason this program is a challenge to do in blue states is that there’s an immediate gut reaction to it that it’s going to take away money from public schools. The states where you’ve seen progress on this have been able to mitigate that or deal with that. So, for example, in Utah, they just passed legislation to provide a voucher-like bill funding tuition for parents. The way they did that and were able to avoid opposition by teachers’ unions was by also providing an additional $6,000 per public school teacher. So the state said, “We’re going to pass this, but we have to do it in a way where the public schools win and the nonpublic schools win as well.”

So I do think that in states with strong teachers unions, you have to figure out some way that they feel like there’s a win here for them as well.

Let’s talk about some other New York-related issues.

Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her State of the State address, and also released her executive budget. Tell us a little about the programs she’s proposing, whether it’s from the State of the State, or the executive budget, that are of interest to the Orthodox community.

The State of the State gives the goals and aspirations of the governor in the coming year. It’s an important address. But where the rubber hits the road is ultimately in the release of the budget — the actual numbers, the actual policies.

When the budget was released — $227 billion for all sorts of things — I think the two things that the community most focused on is how we are addressing crime and antisemitism and things like that; and where the rubber meets the road when it comes to our yeshivas.

In terms of security and antisemitism, there is $45 million of funding that goes directly to nonpublic schools, including yeshivas, which can be used for security, among other things. And there’s another $25 million for a program called Securing Communities Against Hate, which can be utilized for camps and shuls and schools at risk of hate crimes — up to $50,000 per building.

In terms of funding for yeshivas, there are three principal programs, one of which I mentioned was a security program. The second program is called MSA-CAP, known as “mandated services,” which it looks like was essentially funded at about the same level as last year. And the major increase that Gov. Hochul proposed is a 20% hike in the program that reimburses nonpublic schools for STEM teachers. She is proposing to raise that to $70 million, from $58 million last year.

I remember when this STEM funding was first passed in 2017; it was like Teach NYS’ baby. It was $5 million then, and you were open about the fact that this was a way to get your foot in the door of government funding for private-school instruction. And it has expanded more than tenfold in five years.

Going back to the beginning of our conversation: when parents say to themselves, “How do we get tax credits in our state? How do we get big items in our state?” Well you can’t look at STEM funding — which reimburses our yeshivas for the cost of their science and math teachers, and schools are receiving serious money for it and teachers are getting paid more for it — and not think that there’s a lot of potential here for us in New York to get the kinds of programs that other states are giving. I remember so many different people dreaming of the idea of seeing if limudei chol could be paid for by the state — and now it’s happening.

So I do think that New Yorkers should be extraordinarily optimistic that when you see a program grow like that has, the sky’s the limit in terms of what we’re able to go after. And there’s a fairness and equity argument: we have the largest yeshivah/day school population in the country — nonpublic schools in New York represent 17% of the population and receive less than 3% of the education funding. It’s a serious argument to make with a yeshivah/day school population that if it were its own public school district, it would be larger than seven or eight states. And you’re seeing progress being made.

Are there any other programs of interest to the Orthodox community in Hochul’s executive budget?

It appears there will be more universal pre-K funding; that’s something that yeshivas have benefited from for a very long time.

One area of disappointment is that the governor did not include a program we have pushed for to give free meals in schools for all students. [Ed. The federal government has long provided free or reduced-cost meals based on a student’s family income. During the COVID pandemic, the federal government provided free meals for all students. School advocates in New York are now pushing a bill for all students in the state to get free meals, with the state making up the funding gap, estimated at around $200 million annually.]

It’s important for people to understand that the governor’s budget is sort of the foundation, and now the state Senate and Assembly are going to produce their own budgets, and then they’re going to hash out together a final budget.

It often happens that a governor doesn’t include an item in their executive budget, but the Legislature pushes for it and it ultimately passes in the final budget.

I don’t think Gov. Hochul is opposed to this program. But sometimes the Assembly or Senate need to carry a program, then when all three groups get together, the Assembly Speaker or Senate Majority Leader push for it and the governor agrees to include it. There’s serious hope for our free lunch bill, but the community is going to have to really work hard on it to get it done. When talking about direct aid to parents, having free meals is quite a benefit.

Is leadership in either of the legislative chambers going to make that bill a priority?

I believe the Senate is coming behind us in a big way. The Assembly is supporting it, too, but I would be very surprised if the Senate didn’t make this one of their big issues this year.

It’s about reaching out to your local state legislators and saying to them, “This is meaningful to me as a parent.”

Lower-income students are already getting free meals. Everyone got free meals during the COVID shutdown, when many people were out of work and the economy shut down. Now that that’s over, opponents would argue, why should the state pay for meals of kids from higher-income families?

The argument for free meals has always been that you want to create a culture where all children feel like they are on the same level, that we’re all in it together. And when you have an environment where some kids are bringing in lunches, some kids are paying at the school cafeteria, and some parents can’t afford anything, what studies have shown, and what many groups including even the progressive movement has pushed the most, is this idea that free meals for all students is about having all kids be on the same playing field.

Our argument to the state has been you can’t, on the one hand, say that high-income public school kids get free meals, but then not provide them for our kids as well. [Ed. All public school kids in New York City get free meals, under a provision providing free meals to all students attending any school system in which at least 62.5% of students are verified low-income.]

This all should give people hope that things are happening when it comes to private education: whether it’s this federal bill we’ve been discussing, or it’s places like Florida, Pennsylvania, or it’s STEM funding in New York, and now that there’s serious advocacy for free meals for all students, something is radically changing in America.

In addition to the meals, did you have any other disappointments in the executive budget?

There’s always a very long grocery list. No advocate is going to say they got everything they wanted. The goal in politics is to be at the table. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. You want to be there to say that these are the things that we want and here’s why we think we should get them, and the door is not closed until the budget is done at the end of March. So, from my perspective, this is a good start. But we would be terrible advocates if we were to sit there and say, “Wow, that was great, congratulations, and we’re done.” There is a tremendous amount more that the community needs.

The New York Timeshas run a series of articles against yeshivas and the government funding they receive. Do you think this series is having a detrimental effect on the push by community activists to increase state funding for yeshivas?

Legislators and elected officials whom I’ve spoken to have looked at what The New York Times is producing and see it for what it is, which is a biased, unfair campaign against our schools and our community. I’ve heard those words from elected officials. I have not seen elected officials look at that and take it seriously, because it is so clear to any outsider who reads that to see it for what it is.

Imagine you are an elected official, and you see these articles, day one, day two, day three, day four, and you see the articles have misinformation and inaccurate data. And you say to yourself, “Is the constituency that’s being targeted for these articles the problem? Or is there a campaign being run to basically focus on one community and one school system?” And so I do think we have to give credit to our elected officials, who have seen through this.

Unlike a lot of these reporters,  legislators have taken the time to visit the schools and see the impact that these schools are making on these kids, and their outcomes. They see that the narrative that’s being painted in the stories does not fit with what the elected officials have seen on the ground with their constituencies in their communities.

Any final comments?

If you didn’t vote in the last election, if you don’t know who your elected officials are, if you don’t understand local, municipal or federal policies and governments and how they work, it’s never too late for you to learn and understand these things and participate in them. It’s critically important. Every single person who learns about the process, every single person who votes, makes us a stronger community.

This interview originally appeared in Hamodia’s Prime magazine.

—

rborchardt@hamodia.com