In a display of compromise rarely seen in government today, the Illinois legislature passed a historic school funding bill last week. Most notably, the bill includes a provision for a $75 million tax-credit scholarship that expands private school access to low-income families.
Governor Bruce Rauner (R-IL) thanked leaders in a statement for “finding common ground that will reverse the inequities of our current school funding system.”
Tax-credit scholarships fall within the broader recent movement in education known as “school choice.” They allow taxpayers – individuals, corporations, or trusts – to donate to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) and receive a credit on their state taxes in return. The SGO then distributes the donated funds to qualifying students to attend a private school of their choice.
The program targets students whose families live below the poverty line, and also those who live in “focus districts,” or districts with persistently low-performing public schools.
The Chicago Tribune’s Editorial Board praised the legislation, writing that, “for too long, low-income children in Illinois have been prisoners of their ZIP codes. Their educational opportunities are determined by arbitrary lines on a map that pen families inside a school district’s boundaries.”
Tax-credit scholarships are one way to overcome educating by zip code; they are a step toward combatting a system that often traps inner-city minority students in poor-performing, even dangerous schools. Moreover, they gives low-income families the same right wealthy families have to choose the best education for their child, whether it be in a traditional public school, public charter school, or nonpublic school.
Though the program will not be up and running until February, teachers unions and the Democratic legislators dependent on union financial support have already begun criticizing it, because they believe it will divert funds from public schools. Some union leaders erroneously labeled the tax-credit scholarship program “vouchers,” however the two programs are quite different from a policy standpoint. Vouchers draw money from public coffers and distribute it to qualifying families, whereas the money for tax credit scholarships stems only from private donors.
Moreover, voucher programs have created battles in court, as their opponents criticize the flow of public money to private schools, many of which are faith-based. Tax-credit scholarships do not raise these questions about church and state, as all of the money involved is private.
Capped at $75 million per year, Illinois’s program is the largest tax-credit scholarship at inception in the nation. School choice programs have typically only taken root in states where the legislature and governor are conservative – making Illinois an anomaly.
Florida, which administers the largest tax-credit scholarship program in the nation, granted nearly $700 million in scholarships to students during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Research after the program’s implementation in Florida shows a large benefit to scholarship-receiving students relative to their peers.
The majority of scholarship recipients in Florida attend faith-based private schools — entities that have also proven successful in Illinois cities such as Chicago. Catholic Archdiocesan high schools outperform the state average on the ACT across all subjects, and elementary schools met or exceeded all required state benchmarks.
