Tuition? Tax credit?

I personally have no faith in Shelly Silver anymore...... NYtimes: 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."I am not ruling anything in, I am not ruling anything out," he said. Mr. Silver, who is an Orthodox Jew, is under dueling pressures from the Jewish community and the teachers' unions, two groups that he has supported in the past, and which have supported him.Leaders of the teachers' unions have called the tax credit proposal a stealth voucher, but Mr. Silver has remained receptive to the concept. "I am open to the idea of assisting parents and schools that provide such education, as well as understanding that we have to do a better job with the public education system," he said yesterday. Ezra Friedlander, a political consultant from Borough Park, Brooklyn, said he expected that Mr. Silver would eventually support some kind of tax credit proposal. He pointed to several black and Latino members of the Assembly from New York City who are supporting the proposal. "I'm sure Shelly Silver understands that this is an important issue for his community, for the observant community," Mr. Friedlander said. "He has always been helpful to that community. There is bipartisan support, and that can really affect things." The $400 million proposal would allow parents who live in a school district with failing schools to receive up to $500 per child to use for any educational purpose. Mr. Pataki and other supporters have said that most of the money would go to parents in New York City with children in public schools.....