Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker makes it clear Illinois is a land of “choice” when it comes to reproductive rights.
Fast forward five years: a woman chose to keep her baby. Now she is getting ready to send her child to school. Does that woman still have a choice in Illinois?
Depending on what Pritzker does next, and negative indicators are out there, the answer may be “no.” You had a choice about bringing a child into the world, but not about how that child will live.
Pritzker’s anti-choice stance is about school choice.
In 2023, Illinois’ teachers unions were going hard at the Invest in Kids program, which offered a 75% tax credit for donors helping low-income students escape failing public schools to attend the private schools their parents otherwise could not afford. About 15,000 Illinois students benefitted in the final year.
The unions won, thanks largely to dumping $1.5 million on state lawmakers just before the decision, which was part of $21.5 million since 2010 to ensure their fealty. Pritzker acted as if he would sign an Invest in Kids extension if it got to his desk, but was silent while the Illinois General Assembly was pondering it and being hit hard by the teachers unions to kill it. His voice in the debate could have swayed it, but his silence spoke loudly.
Illinois became the only state to go backwards on school choice, which has been growing across the nation. Private school choice is now available in 30 states.
Where Illinois failed these kids, the federal government stepped in. Congress on Independence Day passed the Educational Choice for Children Act, which gives a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to $1,700 for those donating to scholarship funds for low-income students. Besides private school scholarships, the donations can help public school children obtain tutoring, special education or other educational resources.
It will not divert money from public schools. But the teachers unions are fighting anything that competes with their monopoly on mediocrity, including the public school choice of charter schools.
The irony is that teachers union bosses send their children to private schools, including the Illinois Education Association’s chief lobbyist and the Chicago Teachers Union’s president. In Chicago, 3-in-10 teachers sent their children to private schools.
The value is apparent to these union educators, but they are willing to deny the same choice to other parents just because those parents make less money?
Low-income children arguably have a greater need than the children of professional educators. Only 26% of low-income third through eighth graders can read at grade level and just 14% reach that level in math.
But here’s the problem, and why Pritzker can torpedo private school choice for a second time for Illinois’ needy families. The federal program is voluntary at the state level. Illinois must choose to join it.
Pritzker has already signaled, at a minimum, his reticence.
“This destructive bill is a major setback for students across the nation and will create further barriers to success for students at all levels,” he said.
He specifically criticized the private school donation credits, claiming they would be tax credits for President Trump’s wealthy friends and hurt public school funding through enrollment drops.
Sounds like a sound bite from the National Education Association, which made the same claim that public schools would suffer and also claimed school choice was a racist effort to reinstate segregation.
Here are the gaping holes in their logic.
If Trump’s wealthy friends needed a tax credit, millionaires and billionaires wouldn’t mess around with $1,700. That’s an amount the rest of us would give to help a needy child.
As far as taking from public schools, guess again. Public schools still receive property taxes for each private school child they are relieved of the responsibility of educating and the state funding formula protects against funding losses from enrollment declines. Taxpayers saved between $156 million and $362 million during the first five years the Invest in Kids program operated in Illinois.
Adding private dollars into the education system and giving impoverished children a better shot at a promising future is a good thing. The tortured logic teachers unions apply, while using private schools themselves, props up a hypocrisy and furthers economic segregation just so they can protect their hegemony.
Pritzker was not elected to represent the interests of teachers unions or to use children’s futures to posture for a presidential run. He was elected to represent the interests of us all, and we all benefit when more children excel academically and become productive members of our communities.
Pritzker needs to make Educational Choice for Children Act scholarships available in Illinois. We need to give low-income parents the ability to nurture that baby they chose to keep.
