CV NEWS FEED // More than 9,600 low-income students attending private schools in Illinois, including many Catholic, will lose their scholarships in January after a state lawmaker refused to call a vote on extending the state school choice program’s duration.
Illinois has offered the Invest in Kids Scholarship Tax Credit program since 2017. “The program offers a 75% income tax credit to individuals and businesses contributing to qualified Scholarship Granting Organizations,” according to local news outlet Southwest Regional Publishing (SRP). “The SGOs then provide scholarships for students whose families meet the income requirements to attend qualified, non-public schools and technical academies in Illinois.”
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel Welch passively ended the scholarship program by refusing to call the program’s extension to a vote on the final day of the fall veto session on November 9. In a statement through a spokesman Welch said he “declined to call the bill because it did not have enough votes to pass.”
Retired teacher and fundraiser for various Catholic schools Peter Romagnolo told SRP that he has “little confidence” in trying to bring back Invest in Kids:
The politicians have spoken by their silence. Even [Cardinal Blase Cupich] has spoken, by his failure to head down to Springfield with those schoolkids. What’s best now is for Catholic schools—and by that I mean the laity led by the parents and local business communities—to simply get about doing grassroots work to bring in more donations, more revenue, to keep schools afloat and beyond that, generate scholarships for parents who need help sending their boys and girls to Catholic schools.
“[In addition to the 9,600 currently served], there’s 20,000 to 30,000 other students who are on a waiting list…families that want to try to get into the program and so what we really should be talking about is how do we expand this?” asked State representative Joe Sosnowski, who described the program as “popular with parents across the state.”
“How do we create more opportunities for more families because we know the demand is out there?” he continued:
You know, we have wealthy folks, elites, you know, like the governor, the speaker, heads of the teachers unions and even public school teachers themselves. For whatever reason, they decided and they looked at it for their student that it was important for them to have an alternative to the public school that they were in. And that’s fine. That’s great that they decided to do that. They have the opportunity and the financial means to do that. But why wouldn’t we give that same opportunity to families with financial need?
The Chicago Teachers’ Union celebrated the program’s ending, calling the program a “voucher scheme” and a “historic win for public education” in a statement:
Illinois lawmakers made history by being the first state in the nation to eliminate a school voucher program, a “reform” effort started in 1956 by white parents in North Carolina seeking to stop public school integration. The dedicated efforts of organizers and advocates made this triumph for public education possible, marking a significant milestone in the fight for anti-racist, gender affirming, pro-immigrant, equitable and fully funded public schools.
This achievement…strikes an incredible blow to a movement that is dead set on destroying public education and destabilizing black, brown and working class communities. Willing to demonize educators and their families, defund their classrooms and attack their unions, those behind the push for the voucher program in this state have made it clear that their agenda came before the well-being of children and their families.
Illinois State Senator Dave Syverson said according to SRP,
[Invest in Kids] is something that had bipartisan support just a few years ago…This is a program that hasn’t taken away from the public schools. That’s been clear in the budgeting, we know that it’s worked. And there’s really no reason why this shouldn’t continue to help the families in Illinois. So we’re going to continue to push for this. If they do not allow a vote, we’ll start again in January (when the General Assembly begins its spring session).
