Tax credit aimed at private school scholarships

Teachers union calls bill ‘backdoor approach’ to vouchers

Vouchers are subsidies that families can apply to tuition at a school of their choice. Supports say they contribute to more choice and accountability in education; opponents say they take money away from public schools.

‘‘This is a thinly veiled voucher program designed to offer tax credits to large businesses who subsidize student tuition at private and religious schools,” Amy Maloney, a union lobbyist, said on the union’s Web site. ‘‘This tax credit will rob public school students of funding they deserve and need.”

‘‘It’s not a voucher program,” said Senate Majority Whip James E. DeGrange Sr., lead sponsor of the Senate bill. ‘‘It’s a tax credit system.”

The Building Opportunities for All Students and Teachers (BOAST) in Maryland Tax Credit bill would give a tax credit for 75 percent of the contribution a business or nonprofit makes to scholarships for private school teachers or students.

Private school teachers could use the scholarships for certification programs or graduate studies.

The credit would be available for contributions to ‘‘innovative educational programs” outside the regular academic program of a public school.

‘‘What we really got to look at is education,” said DeGrange (D-Dist. 32) of Glen Burnie. ‘‘Maybe there’s some opportunity for scholarships to public school kids to go to a private school. It’s all about education.”

‘‘It’s a reverse voucher plan,” said Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Dist. 18) of Kensington, who opposes the bill. ‘‘Do we have a responsibility as a state to provide assistance to private schools? ... That’s a conversation that has to take place.”

The conversation should not be that the bill takes money away from public schools, Madaleno said. But it could raise a number of questions for state education funding.

‘‘What happens if we are starting to give public support to private schools?” he asked. ‘‘What rules do they have to follow? The public schools open their doors to everybody. ... If [private schools] get support, do they take on any more responsibility? What about a religious school whose teachings offend the sensibilities of the majority?”

Catholic schools are some of the bill’s biggest proponents.

‘‘The greatest concern for us is to be able to continue to do what we’ve been doing for more than two centuries and that is to educate children from lower, middle-class families,” said Mary Ellen Russell, deputy director of the Maryland Catholic Conference. ‘‘So any way we can increase scholarships for those families is important to us.”

Sen. Patrick J. Hogan (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village called the bill ‘‘a great program to get the business community financially involved in K-12 education.”

Only private schools with tuition rates at or below the per-pupil spending rate of public schools would be eligible to receive contributions under the bill.

‘‘It’s not for the Georgetown Preps and Holton Arms and places like that where tuition far exceeds the per-pupil expenditure in public schools,” Hogan said.

‘‘I believe this is the best thing for our children, wherever they go to school,” said Del. James E. Proctor Jr. (D-Dist. 27A) of Brandywine, the bill’s lead sponsor in the House.

Proctor, a retired middle school principal and teachers union member, said he is pushing the bill so that private schools can have quality teachers.

Legislative analysts estimate that the bill could take $20.7 million from the general fund and $2.8 million annually from the transportation trust fund.

As all eyes turn to budget projections of deficits in the coming years, both sides say it will be difficult to get any tax bill with a large price tag passed.

‘‘It’s going to be very difficult this session because it has a fiscal impact,” Hogan said. ‘‘Any tax bill has a fiscal impact and we take those into consideration.”

But Proctor doubts that the state would get anywhere near the $25 million in tax credit requests that the state Department of Education would be able to approve each year under the bill.

‘‘I do not believe that we’re going to get that many tax credits out there to worry about losing $200,000 to $300,000 in tax credits,” he said.