Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

Americans have a tradition of taking to the streets to protest for justice, yet there have always been protests against progress, too. New Yorkers are now getting a dose of each kind of protest in respect of education reform. On the former side, an estimated 5,000 people converged yesterday on the state capitol to support Governor Pataki's proposal for education tax credits, and even the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, suggested he would be sympathetic to learning more about the idea, a signal to Albany insiders that he is persuadable. On the latter, the city's teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, will, three weeks from today, stage a protest in front of the ABC network's headquarters on Manhattan's Upper West Side, expressing the group's displeasure with a recent "20/20" documentary that criticized the government's public school monopoly and called for school choice.

In Albany, advocates from Catholic, Jewish, and public charter schools as well as home schoolers from all corners of the state, many making the trip from New York City, called on the Legislature to approve the governor's proposal to offer refundable tax credits to parents of students in failing public schools so that they could apply the money toward tutoring or the tuition at a private school. The governor was there, as was state Senator Martin Golden; a Democratic assemblyman, Vito Lopez, and Cardinal Egan of New York.

The rally marked another step in the remarkable progress of the tax credit proposal. It was initially greeted with skepticism in many quarters, but has been building momentum ever since. Attorney General-cum-gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer was forced to make an abrupt about-face, first opposing on "constitutional grounds" and then supporting it. Now Speaker Silver is expressing his willingness to leave the door open.

Not so the teachers unions, however. Yet even if their attempts to thwart the tax credit plan appear ever more likely to fail, they still have a voice and plan to use it on March 8, when they gather in front of ABC's headquarters to protest a January 13 documentary. In the program, "Stupid in America," correspondent John Stossel, whose syndicated column appears in The New York Sun, explored the underbelly of America's public schools and highlighted Belgium's education system, which offers parents vouchers they can use at any school, and argued that American parents would be better off if they could do the same.

Mr. Stossel interviewed an 18-year-old South Carolinian, Dorian Cain, who couldn't read at the first-grade level after 12 years in public school. A mere 72 hours spent at a private tutoring center was enough to improve Mr. Cain's reading level by two grades. Mr. Stossel spoke to one California grandmother who was reduced to tears when school officials relegated her grandchild to a sub-par public school after they discovered she had lied about her address to sneak her children into a better school in a neighboring district.

For this, Mr. Stossel has brought upon himself the opprobrium of the union. Among other "crimes" cited in the union's own press release announcing the protest: portraying the city schools "as a 'union-dominated monopoly' where 'hundreds of teachers that the city calls incompetent, racist, dangerous, guilty of sexual misconduct have been paid millions' because the union contract makes it 'almost impossible' to fire them" and asking his audience, in respect of teachers' working hours, "how many of you work a uniform six-hour, 40-minute day?"

The UFT, joined by a smattering of other affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers that will stage similar protests against local ABC affiliates around the country, will air its grievances against Mr. Stossel for highlighting what, by our lights at least, are obvious problems with the public schools. With abysmal high-school graduation rates making headlines and single mothers suing for vouchers, New Yorkers have been amply reminded of late of problems in the schools.

So much so that the teachers are starting to lose support even among their fellow union members. The president of the Greater New York City Building and Construction Trades Council, Edward Malloy, joined the governor and Cardinal Egan on the platform yesterday to call for tax credits. As Michael Tobman, an organizer of yesterday's rally, told us, the tax credits have become more of a family issue than a union issue. Increasingly, the teachers union looks like it's on defense, while the forces of school choice and competition are on offense in the fight for educational progress, as they were yesterday in Albany.