Gov. JB Pritzker has proposed cutting the current 75% tax credit to 40% for the Invest in Kids Scholarship Tax Credit Program. It’s for low-income families who send their kids to private K-12 schools.
It’s the only thing close to school choice that Illinois has, which is why teachers’ unions despise it. There seems to be no opposition to the program from anybody except teachers’ unions and officeholders who answer to them.
Illinois schools are already getting a $5 billion grant this year from the federal government under the new American Rescue Plan, and Pritzker recently announced he would increase the state’s contribution by schools by $350 million.
The proposed cut to the scholarship program would save a lousy $14 million. That’s like three-tenths of one percent of the budget.
Will teachers’ unions prevail again? We’ll know around the end of this month when the next budget is finalized.
-Mark Glennon
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Pritzker should be ashamed of himself. Honestly.
I hope that the parents who are victimized by these ruthless teachers unions howl and scream at the SOB occupying the governor’s office.
Because he deserves every scream. The man makes me sick.
The CTU look at the low income students who can’t escape the failed CPS system in the same way East Berlin border guards looked at their citizens. They cannot stomach even one of their pawns getting a chance at a better education.
No analysis as to the ‘good vs bad’ of the very modest tax credit, just that the teachers union doesn’t want it. And Pritzker and Democrats will eagerly comply. I strongly believe the teachers union doesn’t want the private school tax credit because it reminds everyone of the complete failure of public education in Illinois.
Was reading 75% of scholarships go to low income kids of color….so much for solving the systemic racial education divide because the overwhelming white teachers unions got to feed at a trough that’s never big enough