Union boss school-choice betrayal reveals NYs true power players

New York’s teachers’ unions have never been shy about throwing their weight around to boost spending or weaken accountability in the state’s public education system.But things took a wild turn this month as they used that heft to turn the state’s labor movement against their own colleagues — thousands of union dues-paying teachers at private and parochial schools.Beginning in January, American taxpayers can donate up to $1,700 to “scholarship granting organizations” that benefit K-12 students, and deduct that same amount from the taxes they owe Uncle Sam.The provision, adopted as part of last year’s tax mega-bill, means states that join the program must now set rules and issue a list of eligible SGOs.Gov.Kathy Hochul, to her credit, has signaled she’ll soon do so, since the alternative is to let New Yorkers’ donations flow to other states that have opted in.For the city’s United Federation of Teachers and its parent union, the New York State United Teachers, this amounts to a five-alarm fire.SGO benefits can flow virtually anywhere, even into public schools, because parents decide how their kids can use them.But UFT and NYSUT fear any program that gives parents a choice — by, for instance, awarding scholarships to attend a non-public school, or making it easier to homeschool — because they know many dissatisfied families would take it.And every family that exercises school choice sparks more uncomfortable questions about why New York spends more than any state on public schools while producing such middling student outcomes.In New York’s labor movement, UFT and NYSUT comprise the tail that often wags the dog.The state now has more public-employee union members than private-sector union members, mainly due to the evaporation of its manufacturing sector in recent decades.And last week, that meant the teachers had the pull to get the state AFL-CIO, an umbrella group of public and private unions, barking away at a press conference.New York A...