By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Plans for Texas to soon adopt a massive school choice program is good news for Illinois parents. Another state joining the nationwide wave of school choice expansion means Illinois increasingly stands out for its lunacy of having killed off its only school choice program in 2023.
The more Illinois is surrounded by school choice states, the more pressure Illinoisans can put on their legislators in demanding educational freedom. Take a look at the below map to see what an outlier Illinois has become.
Texas is primed to pass Education Savings Accounts available to all school children this legislative session. The state’s Senate has already passed one version of the school choice bill and the House is set to vote on its own version. A reconciled bill is expected to pass and Gov. Abbott has signaled he’ll sign the bill into law. The Lone Star State’s program will be the biggest day-one school choice program in the country.
Here are some more of the details of the Texas program as reported by the American Federation for Children:
- All six million Texas K-12 students would be eligible to apply for ESAs.
- ESAs could be used for a variety of pre-approved educational expenses including tuition at a non-public school, tutoring, extracurricular expenses, transportation, special needs therapies, and more.
- If demand exceeds available funding, the program will prioritize students who are disabled or are from low- or middle-income families.
- The program would be available for the 2026-2027 school year.
- Most students would receive about $10,800. Students with special needs would receive whatever they were eligible to receive in a public school. Homeschool students would receive $2,000.
Once the bill is signed, Texas will become the 15th state to provide universal school choice to parents and children. That means every family will have access to choice regardless of race or income.
Texas’ passage of a universal program stands in stark contrast with what’s happening in Illinois. Just a year and a half ago, Illinois’ Invest in Kids Act, which for several years gave thousands of low-income kids access to scholarships funded by income tax credits, died when Democrat lawmakers refused to extend the program.
And now Illinois lawmakers are considering legislation that would establish their control over homeschooling, the last form of education politicians don’t currently have a say over.
That said, Illinois politicians will find it increasingly difficult to avoid the national wave of educational freedom that’s being given to parents. At some point, it will become toxic for Illinois lawmakers to defend the failure in cities like Peoria, where just 9% of black students can read at grade level. Or in Waukegan, where only 16% of Hispanic kids are proficient in reading. Or in Decatur, where reading proficiency for white children stands at just 14%.
And at some point, it will also become toxic for lawmakers to oppose school choice.
The school choice revolution is spreading. It’s only a matter of time before it returns to Illinois.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- New teacher contract: CTU wins, CPS wins…Chicago taxpayers lose
- Homeschooling and the hypocrisy of Illinois politicians
- RIP Norman Lear. Fifty years ago he scorned Chicago Public Schools for its failures. His criticisms still matter today.
- Illinois becomes first state in America to go backward on school choice
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
CTU will never allow school choice. And IL bought and paid for by teachers unions.
Here are some interesting articles.
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19900415/1066434/thomas-jefferson-foresaw-the-dangers-of-america-having-an-uneducated-citizenry
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-in-this-world/201205/the-real-dangers-of-poor-education
To be up to date, your map should add Idaho (private school choice + universal) and make Tennessee and Wyoming universal as well. On the other side, sadly, voters in Nebraska repealed their program last November.
Thanks for the updates, Ben.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-homeschool-bill-would-create-pipeline-criminal-justice-system-parents-dem-lawmaker
You can quickly see from the article the real point of this bill – Teachers union wanting to slow down if not stop minority families in Chicago from homeschooling, i.e. force them into the failing public schools to shore up head count.
The above map closely mirrors the 2024 presidential election results by state. Neither Illinois nor other blue states will adopt school choice measures any time soon. Democratic politicians can’t afford to betray their largest campaign donors, the teacher unions. Residents, employers and congressional seats will continue to leave blue states for red states.
I wonder, considering IL Democrats war on home schooling, school choice, and poor academic outcomes, how many parents would consider moving out of IL to states with better educational opportunities. I also assume that the majority of them tend to be Republicans, which does not bode well for the IL Republican Party if they move to other states.
Wally, we badly need good research to answer that and on the broader question of how much moving is going on for political reasons. Social scientists need a kick in the butt to get that done. It’s a hugely important topic, resetting political alignments across the nation.
There’s no federal funding for studying moving for political reasons. During Biden’s term, they only provided funding for DEI research. Like Musk said, DEI was baked into every aspect of the government, and scientists only got funding for research if there was a strong DEI component to their research proposal. Same for academic research that approved research. No one cares to do research that Republicans are unhappy in blue states. Unless of course, teh angle would be “how many extremist conservatives are moving to red states to make them more extreme? And how can the federal government combat this extremism?”… Read more »
Inspiring!