Agudath Israel of America applauds Senator Bill Cassidy (R- LA) and Representative Jackie Walorski (R-IN) for leading the effort to increase school choice across the country. The Educational Choice for Children Act the legislators unveiled today will provide ten billion dollars’ worth of tax credits to individual and corporate taxpayers to support educational opportunities in all fifty states. Providing dollar for dollar tax credits will encourage both businesses and individuals to invest in education.
Currently, twenty one states have scholarship tax credit programs which have helped hundreds of thousands of students attend the school of their choice, public or private. Jewish day school families, among many others, have been beneficiaries of such programs. A federal tax credit would enhance existing programs and open up more educational opportunities in states where no program exists currently.
The proposed bill, which Agudath Israel worked on with the sponsors, would allow a dollar for dollar federal tax credit up to ten percent of an individual taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI) or $2,000 (whichever is higher) and five percent of a corporation’s taxable income for contributions made to a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO). The SGO would then provide scholarships to children of eligible families for educational expenses, which include tuition at private schools.
Agudath Israel has been at the forefront of promoting similar legislation on the state level and continues to advocate for educational choice bills on the federal level. Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudath Israel’s Vice President for Government Affairs and Washington Director commended Senator Cassidy and Representative Walorski, and called for the proposed bill’s favorable consideration. “We encourage lawmakers, Republican and Democratic, to put a bipartisan stamp on the common-sense policy that is at the heart of this bill: assisting parents to access the learning environment and the educational benefits that are best suited for their children, and that will enhance educational achievement for all of America’s students.”
“Agudath Israel has played a key role in advancing school choice across the nation, yet half of the states in this country have not yet enacted any such program,” noted Rabbi Yosef Herz, Agudath Israel’s Director of Federal Education Affairs. “Offering a federal incentive and allowing scholarships to be used for a broad range of educational expenses is exactly what is needed to allow families, regardless in which state they reside, to benefit from this major investment in education.”