Melinda Person

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said, quote, education freedom is the key to unlocking opportunity and success for our next generation of students, end quote.

But Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, characterized the tax credit as a gamble.

She said in a statement, in part, quote, New York would put its name on this program while Washington controls the rules, end quote.

She also worries about the tax credit failing to benefit public school students.

That puts her at odds with the state's teachers' union, which has argued against any programs that send taxpayer dollars to private schools or encourage parents to take their children out of the public schools.

In a statement on October 1st, as the details of the program were finalized, NYSUT President Melinda Person said there was plenty of bad policy in the final program.

The regulations are loaded with poison pills.

If New York opts in, the state would be prohibited from setting standards for scholarship organizations, deciding which organizations can participate, or limiting the types of schools and expenses that receive these federal tax dollars, she said.

New York State United Teachers, the statewide union, rejected the governor's rationale.

And NYSUT President Melinda Person said in an October 9th statement, quote, we are profoundly disappointed that a governor who has championed public education would opt into President Trump's private school voucher scheme, end quote.

Persson said education and civil rights groups had made clear their concerns about the program's threat to public schools, which she said served 90 percent of New York's children.

NYSUT and its allies will continue working to repeal the program at the federal level.

Translation, they're putting surveillance devices that looks like a person in front of your kids and nobody tells you what happens to that data.

This is the Melinda Person, president of the New York State's United Teachers Union, called the whole thing, quote, kind of creepy.

And she's right.

Quote, putting a lifeless machine in front of a student is a bad idea.