Fed deal secures billions to help private schools
Tucked into WASHINGTON — the $1.9 trillion pandemic-rescue law is something of a surprise coming from a Democratic Congress and a president long seen as a champion of public education nearly $3 billion ear— marked for private schools.
More surprising is who got it there: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose loyalty to his constituents diverged from the wishes of his party, and Randi Weingarten, leader of one of the nation’s most powerful teachers unions, who acknowledged that the government had an obligation to help all schools recover from the pandemic, even those whodo not accept her group.
The deal, which came after Schumer was lobbied by the powerful Orthodox Jewish community in New York City, riled other Democratic leaders and public school advocates who have spent years beating back efforts by the Trump administration and Republicans to funnel money to private schools, including in the last two coronavirus-relief bills.
Democ rats had railed against the push by President Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, to use pandemic-relief bills to aid private schools, only to do it themselves.
And the private school provision materialized even after House Democrats sought to curtail such funding by capping coronavirus relief for private education in the bill at about $200 million. Schumer struck the House provision and inserted $2.75 billion — about 12 times more funding than the House had allowed.
“We never anticipated Senate Democrats would proactively choose to push us down the slippery slope of funding private schools directly,” said Sasha Pudelski, advocacy director at AASA, the School Superintendents Association, one of the groups that wrote letters to Congress protesting the carve-out. “The floodgates are open and now
bipartisan support, why would private schools not ask for more federal money?”
Schumer’s move created significant intraparty clashes behind the scenes as Congress prepared to pass one of the most critical funding bills for public education in modern history.
Schumer’s move caught Democrats off guard, according to people familiar with deliberations, and spurred aggressive efforts on the part of advocacy groups to reverse it. The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union and a powerful ally of the Biden administration, raised its objections.
Integral to swaying Democrats to go along, particularly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was Weingarten, several people said. Weingarten reiterated to Pelosi’s office what she expressed to Schumer’s when he made his decision: Not only would she not fight the provision, but it was also the right thing to do.