School choice or a drain on public education? Backers aim to save controversial private school tax credit left out of new Illinois budget
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Sister Maddy Takyala teaches world religion at St. Francis de Sales High School in Chicago's East Side Wednesday.
Created through state legislation in 2017, Invest in Kids provides what are effectively public subsidies, in the way of tax credits, for children from low-to-moderate income families to attend private schools. Its newly uncertain fate has refueled the long-running debate regarding the use of tax credits to help fund mainly religious schools.
“I can’t speak to the decisions that were made across the General Assembly about it. It’s obviously a program that’s been around for a number of years now. I think there’s time still for that program to be considered,” Pritzker said Wednesday after signing the budget into law. He noted it’s “just one piece” of the “significant dollars forward to support education in every possible way. That just happens to be one that’s still left dangling.
That doesn’t mean it was easy for parents who may have already been paying tuition, said Maria Hubbart, a parent who said she took a second job as a dialysis technician, expecting to cover her freshman son’s tuition at St. Francis de Sales before he received a partial Invest in Kids award. “Bad” and “terrible” is how she describes safety and class sizes at the two public high schools in the neighborhood.
“The fact that there was a requirement to take him was a good thing. Schools that are receiving any public money should have to take everybody,” said Henchek, who’s chair of Vaughn’s Local School Council. Policies among other Illinois Catholic schools that have received Invest in Kids funds, however, include a ban on transgender students taking hormone therapy medication on school property, the potential expulsion of students who’ve had an abortion and special rules imposed on students who are pregnant or have children.
“Our position is that the only solution on this issue is that the state should get out of the practice of funding private school tuition entirely,” Creswell said. Pritzker has deferred to legislators on whether they want to keep the program — in part as a negotiating chip with Republicans in an effort to get GOP votes on a budget. But he has said the program should be modified to allow a federal as well as state income tax deduction for donations, which is currently not allowed. That would share its costs between federal and state taxpayers.
“This program is not on the chopping block because it has not been successful. It’s on the chopping block because the teachers union deem it as a threat to their control,” said state Rep. Blaine Wilhour of Beecher City.
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