Albany botched education tax credits when lawmakers took up the issue this spring, but if New Yorkers are lucky, a New York congressman will do better in Washington. Vito Fossella, who represents Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, is taking advantage of the Memorial Day recess to promote an educational tax credit he has introduced in the House. If it passes – and make no mistake, that’s still a big if despite a growing list of cosponsors – the bill would more than make up for Albany’s failure, since it is significantly more generous even than Governor Pataki’s original proposal.

Mr. Fossella’s Tax and Education Assistance for Children, or Teach, Act would offer each family a total tax write-off of $4,500 a year to offset tuition to private schools. Though that’s just a fraction of what the government spends for each student in a government-run school, it’s a large sum compared to all the other tax credits currently on the books in the states. Some states offer generous tax credits to corporations that make donations to organizations offering scholarships, but of the handful of states with a credit directly for parents, the most generous state, Minnesota, caps the credit at $1,000 for each child up to $2,000 a family. Mr. Pataki had proposed a credit of only $500 a child, and that got watered down to $330 once the legislature was through with it.

Mr. Fossella’s bill is also daring for what’s not in it. There is no income restriction on eligibility. There is no requirement that the local public school be sub-par or that, if it is, it be given time to reform. There are no complicated formulae, no loopholes, nothing. The meat of the bill runs to only 190 words after you look past the technical jargon attached to any congressional resolution. Mr. Fossella has proposed an education tax credit in its pure form, available to all parents. It would increase choice and may save the taxpayers money, since the credit is smaller than the cost of educating a student in a government school.

In a testament to how wayward this Republican Congress has become, Mr. Fossella’s bill now faces a far from certain future in the Ways and Means committee and, if it survives that far, on the floor. He has, however, started accumulating the signatures of congressmen who would like to see the bill become law, 25 so far, stalwarts like John Shadegg of Arizona, Tom Feeney of Florida, Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, and Peter Hoekstra of Michigan.

The tax credit debate in Albany failed in its stated goal, but it did succeed in one thing: emboldening proponents of education reforms like vouchers and tax credits. These proponents have always had think tanks and small interest groups on their side, but have struggled to match the grassroots numbers of their opponents in the teachers unions. That started to change this year, as leaders like the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio, ventured into the political fray to back the governor’s proposal. Again yesterday, Bishop DiMarzio stood beside Mr. Fossella to express his support for the congressman’s version. The New York Sun was the only paper in the city to send a reporter to their press conference, a fact we don’t mind saying we find stunning, considering that the bishop shepherds 1.8 million Catholics in a diocese that includes Brooklyn and Queens. Here’s hoping that support for Rep. Fossella’s bill keeps growing, and that more voters and congressmen and religious leaders and for that matter newspapers see the logic of helping parents and children opt out of the government-run school monopoly.