By Neuriel Shore in Los Angeles
This week, as families across California pull out backpacks and count down to the first day of school, my wife and I are doing what we do every August: sitting at the kitchen table, trying to figure out how we’ll afford another year of Jewish day school tuition.
We are not alone. In homes across our state, the start of the school year arrives with the same quiet math. Retirement contributions get trimmed. The kitchen renovation waits another year. The family vacation is scaled back. Thousands of Jewish families make these sacrifices because they believe a Jewish education is worth it.
We have two children at Gindi Maimonides Academy because we believe Jewish education is one of the greatest investments we can make. Our children are learning Jewish values, history, Hebrew, and a love for Israel alongside an exceptional secular education, taught by teachers who know them and genuinely care about them. It is shaping not only what they know, but who they will become. And it comes at an enormous cost.
This back-to-school season, for the first time in years, there is a real chance to ease that burden starting in 2027, but only if California chooses to act now.
A new federal program, enacted by Congress, offers taxpayers a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for donating to nonprofit Scholarship Granting Organizations. Those organizations then award scholarships to eligible K-12 students for tuition and a wide range of educational expenses: tutoring, transportation, technology, special education services, textbooks, uniforms, and after-school programs.
There is one catch. States have to opt in. Over 30 of them already have, including states like Colorado, positioning their students to benefit when the program takes effect in 2027. Gov. Kathy Hochul has signaled that New York plans to join as well. California, so far, has not.
The stakes of that choice are simple. Californians will keep paying federal taxes either way. The only question is whether California students benefit from this opportunity, or whether the dollars flow to students in the states that said yes.
Right now, that opportunity exists only in states that have opted in. California taxpayers can donate to a Scholarship Granting Organization in a participating state and receive the federal tax credit. But their contribution can only support scholarships in that state. Until California opts in, they cannot use the program to support California Jewish day schools, and California students cannot receive its scholarships.
California’s deep commitment to education is important, and this program offers an opportunity to build on that commitment by expanding educational support for students and families across the state. The scholarships are income-limited, targeted to working and middle-class families rather than the wealthy. And they are not only for private school students. Public and charter school families can use them too, for tutoring, transportation, technology, special education services, and after-school programs. School districts and charter networks can even establish their own Scholarship Granting Organizations to support their own students. Opting in does not take a dollar from public schools; it brings new dollars to California children across every kind of school.
For the Jewish community, the potential is significant. If California opts in, the program would allow qualifying contributions from families, grandparents, friends, and fellow congregants to be combined into substantial new scholarship support.
This program has no ceiling, meaning there’s no cap on how much scholarship support a single school, or a single family, can receive. That could translate into real money: enough combined giving to cover a meaningful share of a child’s tuition, making Jewish education dramatically more affordable for far more families.
For a family deciding whether they can keep their child enrolled, that support could be the difference.
This is where the calendar matters. Other states are signing up now. The program begins in 2027. The families writing tuition checks this month cannot benefit from a policy California adopts too late. If we want California children, in Jewish day schools, public schools, and charter schools alike, to share in these resources, the state needs to opt in, and our community needs to be ready when it does.
As both a parent and the Executive Director of Teach Coalition California and Nevada, I see this from two sides. At home, I feel the same tuition pressure as thousands of other families. Professionally, I work every day with school leaders, parents, and policymakers to make Jewish education more affordable and accessible. That is why Teach CA is at the forefront of this effort, together with coalition partners like The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.
But policy alone won’t carry it. Parents will need to organize within their schools. Heads of School and lay leaders will need to mobilize their families. Philanthropists and foundations will need to invest in the advocacy infrastructure that lets Jewish schools compete for public resources. If we build that infrastructure now, this becomes more than a single policy win. It becomes the foundation for a more affordable Jewish education for years to come.
California prides itself on leading. This back-to-school season, it has the chance to lead in something that matters to every family doing the same anxious arithmetic at the kitchen table: putting the right school within reach for every kid.
That is what this is really about. And it is why, this year, I am hopeful.
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Neuriel Shore is the Executive Director of Teach Coalition California and Nevada.