Here’s another option for educational freedom in Illinois: Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Illinois seems determined not to learn any lesson from its neighboring states – whether on labor policy, pensions, taxes or a host of other issues. Illinois is always the outlier. 

If Gov. JB Pritzker gets his way, we can soon add school choice to that list. At the same time its neighbors are expanding choice, Illinois is on track to eliminate it. The state’s current tax credit scholarship program is at risk of being killed off entirely during budget negotiations. If that happens, Illinois will be the first state to wipe out an existing school choice program.

That’s in stark contrast to Iowa, as we wrote recently, which broadened its school choice program earlier this year. Soon, every child in that state will have access to a $7,600 Education Savings Account to use on private schools, tutoring and more.

But Iowa isn’t the only Illinois neighbor leading the charge nationally to make school choice “universal” – meaning all children are given access to educational options. Indiana, too, is moving toward a universal school choice program. Lawmakers there are using their budget negotiations to expand the state’s voucher program. 

Indiana created its school voucher program in 2011. Currently, the $6,000 voucher is limited to students with families whose income doesn’t exceed 300% of the federal poverty level. There are also other limitations, including a requirement that students must attend a failing school.

But if the expansion is enacted, projections show that more than 95% of children in Indiana will be eligible to participate. Some 95,000 kids are expected to use the voucher program in 2025, up from 53,000 today. 

Contrast that to Illinois’ limited tax credit scholarship program which awards scholarships to just 9,000 students. The program, at its max, can cost $75 million a year versus the $46 billion Illinois’ K-12 system spends annually. The Invest in Kids Act is worth just 0.16% of the public system, and yet the Illinois’ teachers unions consider the scholarships to be an existential threat to their existence.

What should be a threat is how miserable of a job the unions and administrators are doing to actually educate Illinois’ children. In Peoria SD 150, for example, just 13 kids out of every 100 can read at grade level. For black students, it’s just 5 out of every 100.

And yet somehow 100% of teachers in the district are rated “excellent or proficient”.

These dismal results come at a high cost. Peoria SD 150 spends over $15,000 per student, which is far more than what any of our neighboring states spend, on average. For a look at your own school district’s student outcomes, check out Wirepoints’ Report Cards page.

Sadly, the results in Peoria are little better than those in the public schools of Decatur, and about the same as those in Rockford and Waukegan. Districts in Springfield and Chicago do just a touch better, but the results are still dismal. (See appendix for those report cards.)

In all, Illinois’ public school system is failing hundreds of thousands of Illinois’ children across the state. 

As we’ve noted in our recent IRS out-migration work, people are leaving Illinois for a host of reasons. If the Invest in Kids Act is killed, lack of school choice will be another one.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• Illinois on track to become first state to kill school choice
• Educational freedom for Illinois children could look like this: Iowa’s Students First Act
• No, it’s not just retirees leaving Illinois. Residents in every age and income group are fleeing.
• Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system – Wirepoints Special Report

Appendix