Students and Cardinal Call for Private-School Tax Aid

This would be a step in the right direction.  Though $500 is too measly, at least it opens the door.

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Students and Cardinal Call for Private-School Tax Aid

By JENNIFER MEDINA

Published: February 15, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/nyregion/15private.html

ALBANY, Feb. 14 — Thousands of students from yeshivas and Roman Catholic schools gathered on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday with their teachers, rabbis and priests — even Cardinal Edward M. Egan — to call for the support of the governor's proposal to provide a tax credit that could be used to pay for private or parochial schools.

Gov. George E. Pataki's budget proposal to give parents in failing school districts a $500 tax credit has already received a nod of approval from the Republican-controlled Senate and several members in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.

But supporters of the proposal are still pressing for the support of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who remained on the fence.

Noting that he was the product of a parochial school, and that he sent his children to parochial schools, Mr. Silver said that he had great sympathy for parents struggling with the costs of private schools but that he also believed that the state's top priority was to finance its public schools adequately...