Some question whether the decades-old alliance and friendship between two great communities can still make a difference in government and politics.

The African-American community has made tremendous strides since that first step across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge back in 1965, whose 42nd anniversary we celebrate this month. The march and the movement it established opened the doors to a brighter tomorrow for countless African-American and West Indian children. The Jewish community, which was there with us as we took those steps, has similarly become more accepted in our larger nation.

This time of year also marks the 60th anniversary of Everson v. Board of Education, which allowed for secular necessities to be provided, i.e., paid for, by the government to children attending nonpublic and religious schools. It is notable that the two anniversaries mark two events significant for the education of children of both communities.

As an African-American representing one of the largest Jewish neighborhoods in the nation, my constituents and I live in partnership every day with a record of tremendous accomplishments in education to show for our work.

But for too many lower income — and even middle-income folks, for too many immigrants, for too many single parents and for too many grandparents raising families, the ability to provide an education to their children in the best school possible is just a dream.

Some are trapped in failing schools. Others might do better in a different setting than afforded by their local public school, but, because their parents can’t afford a nonpublic school, they don’t get the same choice as the wealthy get. Likewise, for many religious families who choose to send their children to a parochial school, be it a yeshiva or a church school, their choice means hard financial consequences.

That these families are either poor or observant doesn’t make them not deserving of constitutionally permitted help from their state government. It’s about race, it’s about religion, and it’s about class. Governor Spitzer has proposed in his budget a modest tax relief plan for these families, which would allow for $1,000 of tuition to be deducted from their state taxes. This would amount to roughly $50 to $65 a child, depending on at what tax bracket families file.

Education is the cornerstone of a free and equal society. And while in the interest of our society and economy schools have to be maintained even by those who never use them, public-school teachers shouldn’t have a monopoly on setting education policy.

There is near-hysterical opposition to this simple tax-relief plan from New York’s main public-school teachers unions — the statewide NYSUT and the city’s UFT. The governor’s proposal will cost the state treasury roughly $30 million. It’s a small proportion of the state’s $121 billion budget, but it represents real relief to struggling middle- and lower-income families.

NYSUT has mobilized its multimillion dollar budget for political campaign contributions and attack ads and is calling in chits with favored legislators to defeat this smart policy that helps real people. Knowing they cannot make an argument based on dollars, they instead call it a matter of principle.

It was a matter of principle to some that lunch counters stay segregated. It was a matter of principle to some that Irish need not apply. It was a matter of principle to some that quotas be placed on the number of Jews allowed into colleges and graduate schools. Should it also be a matter of principle to deny families that sacrifice to pay tuition a small measure of tax relief? Surely in the context of over $7 billion in new money being sent to New York’s public schools, there can be consensus around this issue.

In the budget now being hammered out in Albany, we have an opportunity to rebuild the civil rights alliance between communities of color and Jewish communities. By joining forces to press for equitable — and constitutional — funding of Governor Spitzer’s historic tuition deduction, we open the schoolhouse doors to all.

The Jewish community has an unmatched passion and commitment to social justice, even when it is only others that benefit. African-American and West Indian communities, too, have a proud history of intense social activism and community empowerment. We can help rebuild a partnership on two issues we all care so deeply about: education and our children.

We should take seriously our shared civic commitment to the families of the 15% of New York’s schoolchildren in private and religious schools. We should enact tax deductions for tuition paying families. It is time to join hands and march once more.

Mr. Parker is a state senator from Brooklyn.