* Background from Capitol News Illinois…
Illinois lawmakers adjourned their fall veto session Thursday afternoon without renewing a controversial program that provided indirect state support for students attending private and religious schools.
The Invest in Kids program will sunset as scheduled on Dec. 31, meaning donors to six state-approved private school scholarship funds will no longer be able to claim a 75 percent tax credit for their donations. The program has been capped at $75 million annually since its implementation in 2018.
Advocates for the program say without the tax incentives, the scholarship organizations won’t be able to raise the money they have in recent years, and an estimated 9,600 students who currently receive those scholarships may have to find another way to pay for their education or transfer to their local public school.
Lawmakers passed the Invest in Kids Act in 2017 as part of a bipartisan package that also included an overhaul of the way Illinois funds public preK-12 education. The scholarship program was considered necessary in order to get then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, to sign the public school funding overhaul.
* I told subscribers about this more than a month ago, but it was completely lost in the news media coverage here. Buried in today’s Tribune story…
During the 2022-23 school year, no Black students received the scholarships at more than half of the schools participating in the program, and there were no Latino recipients at about a third of the schools, according to data compiled by the Illinois Department of Revenue.
Only about a quarter of the money in the program went to low-income students, and roughly the same percentage went to students from areas with at least one low-performing public school, according to the Department of Revenue data.
* Also from the Tribune…
A Democratic lawmaker who supports the program said the bid for an extension was hurt because some advocates, particularly the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, tried to turn the issue into a larger crusade against politically powerful teachers unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, which are strong political allies and campaign contributors to many Democratic lawmakers. The institute’s long-standing anti-union agenda was evident in its support of Rauner, who waged an unsuccessful war against public service unions allied with Democrats.
“Once the battle became that ideological, it’s just not going to pass with legislative Democratic majorities,” said the lawmaker in support of the Invest in Kids program, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to publicly comment on a politically sensitive issue.
The massive public relations effort by Invest in Kids supporters did a marvelous job of tamping down information like that.
* But they should’ve been pushing people like this to the forefront…
Republicans said Democrats had sided with teacher unions, particularly the Chicago Teachers Union, over students. Some Democrats, however, also expressed disappointment with the program’s sunset.
“There’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to stay at the school they may have grown to love and built a community within,” said Rep. Kevin Olickal, D-Skokie, on the House floor Thursday, estimating more than 2,000 students in his district will be affected. “They may be thrown into a harmful transition.”
The only chance to renew the program before it sunsets would be through a special session, which would require a joint proclamation from Speaker of the House Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon. A spokesperson for Harmon said it was unclear if such a session would be called.
“Unclear.” Sure. Right. A special session will totally happen.
* NBC 5…
Anthony Holder of Empower Illinois, the state’s largest scholarship granting organization, criticized the ending of the program.
“The real tragedy is that kids who now have a scholarship may be forced to leave their school once these scholarships go away,” Holder said.
I’ve been telling subscribers for weeks that the extension proponents needed a solution which would save the scholarships of kids already in the program, but nobody listened.
* Also NBC 5…
“The Invest in Kids tax credit program wasn’t called for consideration because it didn’t have enough votes, even with the Democratic and Republican caucuses combined, so the program comes to an end on Dec. 31,” the statement [from House Speaker Chris Welch’s office] said.
* Effingham Radio…
At an end of session press conference, House Republican Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) said the program will continue to be a priority of the House Republican Caucus. She also pointed to the fact that numerous Democrat members, include the House Speaker, send their children to private schools, but refuse to give others the opportunity.
* A couple more from Isabel…
* WGLT | Illinois’ controversial private school scholarship program is ending: Teachers unions and other opponents are celebrating. Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery issued a statement Thursday, saying the law’s sunset is a significant stride in prioritizing the needs of the state’s public education system. “There is a nationwide push to divert public dollars from our public schools through vouchers or voucher-like programs like tax credit scholarships and education savings accounts,” Montgomery said in the statement. “Today, Illinois lawmakers chose to put our public schools first and end the state program that subsidized private, mostly religious schools, many of which have discriminatory policies.”
* WICS | IL Freedom Caucus calls out Speaker Chris Welch for blocking Invest in Kids legislation:” Speaker Welch has let down tens of thousands of kids by blocking legislation to extend the Invest in Kids program. There were as many as 35 House Democrats ready to vote for the program (more than enough to pass the bill) had Speaker Welch called the legislation for a vote. The program has handed out nearly 50,000 scholarships since the program launched in the 2018-2019 school year. It has been an effective tool in helping kids – especially low-income kids – escape failing schools. Illinois spends more than $8 billion on education and the greedy, self-serving teachers’ unions went to war to stop a program that at most would provide $75 million in scholarships. The Invest in Kids program did not utilize public taxpayer money. The money came from private donors who received a 75 percent tax credit for their donations.”
- H-W - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:32 am:
Unless you restrict access to only poor people (about 25% of Americans), the working class (33%) and the middle class (33%) will easily consume most of these forms of relief signaled as being for “low income people” (the poor). Not only do they represent larger portions of the population, but they also have greater accessibility to such programs.
If this program comes back next year, I hope the Legislature will limit access to only those at or below the poverty threshold; not those 300% and 400% above the threshold.
- Drury's Missing Clock - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:32 am:
“no Black students received the scholarships at more than half of the schools participating in the program, and there were no Latino recipients at about a third of the schools”
This doesn’t mean there aren’t any minority students at the schools, but it’s important to remember parochial education only became popular in America once public education was racially integrated. Parents are just doing what they think is best for their kids; it’s just unfortunate that what they think is best is to insulate them from society out of a fear for the other.
- Demoralized - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:35 am:
==The Invest in Kids program did not utilize public taxpayer money==
Yes, it does. It’s called a tax expenditure. It’s taxes the state would have otherwise collected.
- Anyone Remember - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:44 am:
“… but it’s important to remember parochial education only became popular in America once public education was racially integrated.”
In the Northeastern cities, parochial education started in the late 19th Century when Protestant run governments made compulsory readings from the King James Bible and recitation of the Protestant (Charlton Heston) version of the 10 Commandments. Elsewhere, the comment about integration is accurate.
- Hank Sauer - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:48 am:
Hopefully some brave DEm will revive this tiny effort to help some wonderful kids
- TheInvisibleMan - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:53 am:
“send their children to private schools, but refuse to give others the opportunity.”
This is such a disingenuous argument. It along with the ‘no tax money is used’ should be called out immediately every time it is mentioned. It’s fine for newspapers to print when supporters say this, but it should be followed up with a fact-check of the statement showing why it is not an accurate statement. That’s something which has completely vanished from news coverage - having turned into just a place for politicians to release press releases full of talking points unchallenged.
Nobody has any less opportunity to send their kids to private schools because of this.
When the argument involves health insurance, this same republican party has no problem claiming private health insurance(or insulin) is available to everyone, no matter the cost of it.
Propose a compromise to save the IKA and tie it to the same tax credits being given to all residents for their health insurance premiums.
When that compromise is rejected, and it would be, then just implement a state single-payer health policy anyway. Similar to what the Michigan legislature is trying to do.
- Lefty Lefty - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:54 am:
I was just reading about Ascension parish in Oak Park while reminiscing about my family’s history.
“The last of Ascension’s buildings, the second school building was added to the south end of the existing school in the mid-1950’s as the school population neared 1,000. Every available space was filled with students, with up to 50 students in a classroom.”
This clearly predates the Civil Rights era and school integration. My school on the south side was packed with students from its start in 1960 until the early 1990s. It now has one quarter of the students it had in the early 1980s.
If there still was a middle class in the US that had pensions and decent healthcare that didn’t cost a fortune, many more would consider sending their kids to parochial schools. Giving affluent people the ability to dodge even more taxes is not a solution to the problem. And, as pointed out in previous posts about this topic, contributors to the fund can still give as lavishly as they would like to their chosen private schools.
I feel terrible for the kids caught in this mess, but private schools are now a choice for the affluent. This program clouded that fact.
- Rudy’s teeth - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:55 am:
Since the Invest in Kids launched in 2018-2019, there should be several years of test scores to indicate that the program is successful. Are test scores at or above grade level?
Does the ISBE have access to test scores for scholarship recipients?
The best evidence to indicate that the program has merit is to produce test scores. Students should be required to take the same standardized tests that public schools students take.
Do the results indicate that scholarship students gain proficiencies in reading and math? Compare the stanines from year to year to indicate academic growth.
- Big Dipper - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 10:55 am:
It’s clear that helping poor students — or any students really — was merely incidental/a smokescreen for creating yet another way for the wealthy to evade paying taxes and to funnel public money to religious schools that are culturally conservative.
- Hannibal Lecter - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 11:06 am:
=== If there still was a middle class in the US that had pensions and decent healthcare that didn’t cost a fortune, many more would consider sending their kids to parochial schools. ===
One factor that is not discussed is the cost of sending a child to a parochial high school. I went to a CPS grade school but a Catholic High school, as many people did during my time. The tuition back in 1996 when I was a freshman was roughly $3,600 a year. That tuition today is now over $12,000 per year per student and that is on the low end of the cost spectrum for Catholic high schools in the Chicago area.
The costs have gone up exponentially now that most instructors are lay people as opposed to instructors that are affiliated with a religious order. The cost spent per student is still much lower than their public school counterparts. The amount spent per student at the CPS high school my nephew attends is over $18k per year.
- Drury's Missing Clock - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 11:08 am:
Gee, I wonder if anything happened regarding integration in the mid-50s that would necessitate greater capacity for that private school… /s
- TheInvisibleMan - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 11:13 am:
“The costs have gone up exponentially”
The costs went up exponentially mostly because the Catholic Church stopped providing funding to individual dioceses, which was a policy that was previously in place even up to the 1990s. I was in a diocese school just as this funding shift was happening.
After that change, an individual diocese had to be self-supporting. Tuition went up to compensate. Some local churches were lets just say less than smooth with how they handled this - even kicking out people who were not tithing enough. The backlash from that, along with the abuse scandals, saw amounts collected from tithing plummet even more, sending tuition skyrocketing again.
The church can still fund its own schools. Just like it once did.
IKA is a bailout for the church, because the actions the church has taken were not and are not sustainable.
- Halfback Option - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 11:38 am:
“Since the Invest in Kids launched in 2018-2019, there should be several years of test scores to indicate that the program is successful. Are test scores at or above grade level?
Does the ISBE have access to test scores for scholarship recipients?”
The best evidence to indicate that the program has merit is to produce test scores. Students should be required to take the same standardized tests that public schools students take.
Lol - test scores are the standard now for success in education? The saddest part of last week’s outcome is the lack of self awareness among some.
- Interim Retiree - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 11:42 am:
—The cost spent per student is still much lower than their public school counterparts.—
Yes, for several reasons. First, special education is a huge amount of a public school district’s budget: teachers, transportation, special schools for those most disabled. BTW: if a private school has a student that qualifies for special needs, the public school supplies them.
Second, a district is required to provide private school students transportation if it provides their own students transportation.
Third, look at the salaries. (I taught my first 8 years in Catholic schools - good experience but had to have a part time job besides)
- Anyone Remember - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:09 pm:
“First, special education is a huge amount of a public school district’s budget … .”
Thank you for pointing that out.
- Amalia - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:11 pm:
I’ve been spending lots of time listening to someone yelling that parents paid for all their family kids and they had hardly any money so everyone should do that too. RC person with zero love for this program. Lots of public schools got better even in the City so the tax payer funded schools are just fine. I find no reason to send a kid to a religious school unless you want them to have your religion. the less religion we have imposed on anything in government the better. so many world examples of how the overly pious ruin things.
- DTownResident - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:18 pm:
If the Iveat in Kids followed patters from all other similar programs there is no IAR data. It was determined for otherbl states that such data wasn’t needed since parents were choosing. An older voucher program for Indiana found that kids actually did worse on tests even four or five years later. For most of thes kids there will also be no IAR data at all since most never attended public schools and IAR data dies not exist before grade 3.
- SoSider - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:24 pm:
It took a perfect political and legislative storm for the Invest in Kids program to get established: An erratic Republican governor who was obsessively hateful of teachers’ unions; a once-a-generation, immensely complicated, and badly needed re-write of the state’s education funding formula that, against all odds, had support across party and geographic lines in legislature; and a pair of legislative leaders who were products of Chicago’s once dominant but now fading Catholic parish and political culture, where parochial schools were a central part of daily life.
Those conditions just didn’t exist in Springfield this year and they might never again. Through that perspective, the failure to extend the program is maybe the least surprising thing to happen this year.
- JS Mill - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:29 pm:
=During the 2022-23 school year, no Black students received the scholarships at more than half of the schools participating in the program, and there were no Latino recipients at about a third of the schools, according to data compiled by the Illinois Department of Revenue.
Only about a quarter of the money in the program went to low-income students, and roughly the same percentage went to students from areas with at least one low-performing public school, according to the Department of Revenue data.=
Wait, that cannot be true because it is contrary to the narrative expressed by a couple of posters here. /s
It really tells you all you need to know about this program.
- Lucky Pierre - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:44 pm:
This was as rigged from the starts as a game between the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals
Teachers Unions 100- poor and lower income kids attending private school on scholarships zero
- Demoralized - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 12:53 pm:
@LP
You’re free to donate to give those kids scholarships anytime you want. Seems to me that you and your ilk aren’t all that concerned about the children. You’re more concerned about your tax break.
- Lurker - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 1:29 pm:
Everyone pints out this failed because it was tied to union bashing. LP comes and posts a union bash. Dang LP, can you help us out and join the other side of the aisle?
- Back to the Future - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 1:40 pm:
The Parents and kids really put in a solid effort. Wish they would have gotten a vote.
My guess is that they will be back next session. Of course, Springfield can be a very dark place and it is going to be hard to beat the entrenched special interest folks. Hoping the parents and children don’t give up.
The trend nationally seems to be going in the direction of choice.
With such low test scores in Illinois parents will surely keep pushing for change.
The elections in Chicago school board members might just surprise some folks.
We have a lot more parents in Chicago than CTU members. Hopefully those parents they will follow the path to get active that was set up by the kids and parents who were pushing for Invest in For Kids. With 70% of our children not reading at various grade levels it seems that a change in direction would e a very good idea.
- Just Me 2 - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 1:50 pm:
The purpose of the program was to give kids a chance to get out of a system that is failing them. If the teachers unions oppose that solution, what solution to they favor?
- Big Dipper - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 2:01 pm:
== If the teachers unions oppose that solution, what solution to they favor?==
Um, improving the public schools?
- Back to the Future - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 2:12 pm:
Agree we should always be trying to improve Public schools.
We just don’t seem able to do that.
It seems we are stuck in a rut of shaming teachers or blaming parents. This picking sides approach is just not helping.
Perhaps a little competition with more charter schools, private school funding ideas and more assistance to the home schooling crowd might be worth exploring.
- Dotnonymous x - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 2:16 pm:
- Unless you restrict access to only poor people (about 25% of Americans), the working class (33%) and the middle class (33%) will easily consume most of these forms of relief signaled as being for “low income people” (the poor). -
Reads like a systemic indictment.
- Thomas Paine - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 2:41 pm:
It was a Voucher Program that was ostensibly created to help urban poor “escape” public schools, only it did not.
That it provided massive, unparalleled tax handouts to the wealthy was a feature, not a bug.
That it primarily helped middle class white kids was a feature, not a bug.
Rich wonders why there was never a compromise put forward to help the current students complete their schooling, but I don’t.
This was never about helping kids, it was about trying to drive a wedge between Democratic elected officials and a couple of core constituencies.
The irony is that Madigan probably would have put it in the BIMP.
- Thomas Paine - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 2:49 pm:
Let me just add a few historical points.
The Catholic Church is competing with Google for math teachers just like public schools are. They can no longer rely on a labor force of free nuns to teach.
The Church realizes their old business model does not work. They are not throwing good money after bad.
Arch diocese cannot keep their schools afloat financially.
Alumni cannot keep their schools afloat financially (except the top tier).
Parents of current students cannot fundraise their way out of the red with fish frys and bingo nights.
Parochial school for the masses is a thing of the past. Perhaps because generations of child abuse finally caught up with the Catholic Church in the US. Perhaps because half of Catholics or more disagree with the Church on core issues like gay rights and abortion, and so they are not going to send their dollars and their kids that way.
Short of allowing Catholic schools to have video poker machines, it’s hard to think of a sustainable fundraising model for them.
- Public school nerd - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 3:40 pm:
“She also pointed to the fact that numerous **Democrat** members…”
Sorry, Effingham Radio, your slip is showing.
- Southsider - Monday, Nov 13, 23 @ 4:14 pm:
I doubt that any proposal put forth to save the scholarship program, whether it’s cuts or wind down, could’ve gotten past the fact that Speaker Welch had a tough time locking in his caucus in support of this program. He was the weak link in the process that had support from Harmon and Pritzker to pass something. Silence from Welch.