By: Ted Dabrowski
Educational freedom. That’s what the Iowa legislature is set to give families in the Hawkeye State later this year with the passage of the Students First Act signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds in January.
Once the program is fully implemented by 2025-2026, every single Iowa student will have access to a taxpayer-funded Education Savings Account (ESA) of $7,600 per student. The funds can be used toward private-school tuition, tutoring and more.
“We are one step closer to providing choice in education for Iowa families regardless of income or zip code,” said Gov. Reynolds upon passing the law. Students will no longer be trapped in schools that don’t work for them or where children simply can’t thrive.
Iowa is just one of the many states dramatically expanding educational freedom, giving parents true control over their children and what and how they learn. Universal school choice programs – where all students can participate – are sweeping the nation in states like Indiana, Utah and Florida.
Contrast that to what’s happening in Illinois, where the state’s lone school choice program – a limited tax-credit scholarship program that covers just 9,000 Illinois kids – is on track to die this legislative session, after just five years in existence.
If Gov. JB Pritzker and the legislature don’t extend the Invest in Kids Act, which sunsets this year, Illinois will be the first school-choice state in the country to kill its program. Last week Wirepoints highlighted the risk of that happening.
Pritzker was already opposed to the Invest in Kids program when he became governor in 2018, stating at one point: “I’m opposed to that $75 million tax credit, that school voucher system…we should as soon as possible do away with it. What I oppose is taking money out of the public schools, and that’s what happened here.”
His obvious lack of commitment to the program was reiterated last week in his official response to Wirepoints’ commentary: “The Invest in Kids Act has to pass the General Assembly. If it doesn’t pass that would not be the Governor eliminating it, that would be the General Assembly eliminating it.”
Add to that Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union’s fervent anti-school choice stance and it’s easy to understand why the prospects for school choice in Illinois are dwindling.
It’s going to take a massive push back from the thousands of families participating in the Invest in Kids Act – and those of the 31,000 children on the waiting list – to keep school choice alive in Illinois.
Illinois residents are being short-changed. Their children are missing out on a movement that’s providing hope and better educational opportunities to millions of students nationwide.
School choice shouldn’t be at risk of dying here, it should be expanding and thriving.
To those critics who say school choice will lead to an exodus from public schools and make it difficult to hold private schools accountable, consider facts like these:
- Overall just three in 10 students in all of Illinois’ public schools can read at grade level. For black students, it’s just one in 10.
- There are hundreds of districts across the state, like those in Decatur, Rockford and Peoria, that are failing their students. We laid out the details in our report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
- In a high-end school district like Wheaton-Warrenville, only 44% of students read at grade level. Never mind that the district’s property tax revenues went up 31% in the last decade even though enrollment dropped by 16%. (To see the results for your school district, click here to go to the Wirepoints Report Card webpage.)
The exodus from schools is already happening. The Chicago Public Schools System has lost more than 100,000 students, or about 25% of its total, since 2000. The overwhelming amount of that loss has come from black students.
And overall the Illinois public school system has lost more than 10% of its enrollment, now at less than 1.9 million vs. 2.1 million a decade ago.
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Parents are still feeling the sting of the draconian school lockdowns and the failed forced remote learning that had major social, emotional and educational impacts on Illinois students. What also became crystal clear during Covid is that parents have little-to-no power vis-a-via school district administrators, the school boards and the teachers unions. Many parents are also repelled by the top-down mandates on sex, race and gender that have politicized our classrooms and diminished the values of merit, competence and educational excellence.
As Illinoisans, we need to stop begging the legislature and our leaders to keep extending a small, non-inclusive school choice program. It’s time we band together and demand real school choice, real parental choice over how – and what – our kids learn.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Illinois on track to become first state to kill school choice
- Wirepoints expands its Report Cards to all 850 Illinois school districts.
- Why can only 6 of every 100 Chicago black students do math at grade level? Chicago Mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson offers some clues.
- Chicago Public Schools implicitly endorses ‘looting and burning’ as a form of equity
Appendix
For those who want more information on Iowa’s plan, here are some of the details straight from the Students First Act website:
With the passage of the Students First Act, parents who enroll their eligible children in an accredited private school will receive an amount equal to the per pupil funds allocated by the state to all public school districts each year. The funds are estimated at $7,598 per pupil for the 2023-2024 school year and will be deposited into an education savings account (ESA) to be used for tuition, fees, and other qualified education expenses.
Funds are deposited into the ESA savings account each year until students graduate or complete high school or turn 20 years of age. Remaining balances are returned to the state general fund.
Effective for the 2023-24 school year, ESAs will be available based on the following eligibility:
Year 1: School Year 2023-24
- All kindergarten students
- All public school students
- Private school students with a household income at or below 300% FPL; for example, a $90,000 household income for a family of four according to 2023 federal poverty guidelines
Year 2: School Year 2024-25
- All kindergarten students
- All public school students
- Private school students with a household income at or below 400% FPL, according to 2024 federal poverty guidelines
Year 3: School Year 2025-26
- All K-12 students in Iowa regardless of income
The ESA application period will open in the coming weeks. Families interested in more information should visit the Iowa Department of Education website and sign up to receive notifications when updates are posted.
Other student funding generated by categorical funding formulas will remain with public school districts. This will include approximately $1,205 per pupil in new funding for students who live in their district but attend a private school.
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.
Pritzker’s pro-union views are going to bankrupt this state with sweetheart deals for public union employees. This is a gift to the teacher’s unions in Illinois when children in Illinois are unable to learn because unions and their teachers only care about money and benefits, not actual positive outcomes for school children. Excellent article Ted.
Pritzker’s policy positions on school choice are out of sync with the rest of the country.
This is how a republic is supposed to function. A few states try something new, and if it is a success, other states can implement something similar.
If Illinois voters wants to experiment with communism/socialism/liberalism, that’s also ok. Some ideas work out well, and some fail miserably. It’s fair, because in each case, the voters themselves approved the experiment (directly or indirectly).
I’m not sure the founding fathers envisioned that communism/socialism/liberalism would be an acceptable states’ rights experiment…
True. How could they have anticipated an entire state of mostly idiots?
For many years Iowa has been a pacesetter in public education – hopefully this transition to school choice in Iowa spreads. Congrats to Iowa for focusing on effective education!
The teachers union controls the state. The only real way to correct this state is to outlaw public sector unions, like they’ve done in other states.
What other states have banned public sector workers? They may have different rules regarding collective bargaining or have laws that employees don’t have to join but not sure they are banned anywhere.
Perhaps you meant limit their rights to collective bargaining? Although that would violate their constitutional rights. Not really sure your “plan” has been thought through.
Illinois is one of two states that permit teachers to go on strike. That’s the difference. The public sector unions have an absurd amount of power in Illinois.
Really? What’s the other state? Is it Hawaii, California, Colorado or Alaska? How about Louisiana, Minnesota or Montana? Or is it Pennsylvania, Vermont, Oregon or Ohio? Do you have a source? “The public sector unions have an absurd amount of power in Illinois.” They have the power that the voters want them to have as guaranteed by our constitution. If you think they have too much power then I suggest you work on getting 71 members of the house and 36 members of the senate to agree with you. Then run a campaign to get 50-60% of the voters to… Read more »
Gerrymandering grade for IL Senate: F
https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/redistricting-report-card?planId=recVPQuH6bmq0dNWQ
The amendment was voted on by the entire state. It passed because more than 50% of all the voters who went to the voting booth thought it was a good idea to add to the constitution. Gerrymandering was not the cause of the people voting for it. Whining like a baby about gerrymandering is nothing new for you but it had nothing to do with what happened on Election Day. I know, I know, the voters were dejected and didn’t show because of gerrymandering. Then again, maybe they were dejected from all the people making up stories about election fraud.… Read more »
“It’s time we band together and demand real school choice, real parental choice over how – and what – our kids learn.” Band together how, I wonder. Is it even possible to motivate a citizenry that’s voted for the mess we’re confronted with, time and again, to suddenly rise up and insist on something else entirely? Just how would they do that, even if they wanted to? We all watched as in Chicago, afflicted with the incontestably worst K-12 school system in Illinois – illiterate students, disastrous finances, dilapidated and decaying buildings, commonplace violence and crime – 15% of the… Read more »
I don’t know much about this Iowa initiative, but it seems like a fantastic idea. Still, I don’t know why Wirepoints bothered to mention it. Illinois, especially Chicago, would never go for it.
Good for Iowa! And so many other states. Sending a child to a government school in Chicago or Illinois is child abuse. Charter schools, private schools, parochial schools, home school…any alternative to government schools !!
Right on SilverFox – My wife and I sacrificed greatly so that our three kids would NEVER, EVER darken the doorway of a government school or college in Illinois. Best investment we ever made. The fact that so many public school teachers and Democrat politicians send their own kids to private school speaks volumes.
It sure does speak volumes that the children of the current socialist/progressive politicians are in private schools. Maybe they’ll learn something and become the Conservatives of tomorrow. Ya think??
Yes, private education for our four was the best investment we ever made also. Tough at times, but I’m so very grateful we could manage it.
I’d like to think a massive parental movement is afoot to demand change. But after the recent Chicago mayoral election, I highly doubt such a movement will become reality. Rather, parents should remove their children from the public school system or they should remove them from Illinois. Indiana or Iowa are good alternatives.