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The Illinois Voucher Law Is About To Ride Into The Sunset. Will Lawmakers Rescue It, Or Just Wave Goodbye?

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In 2017, Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois had suffered a rough defeat of his budget; he then replaced much of his staff with personnel from the right wing think tank, Illinois Policy Institute. One of the first bills he signed after the shakeup was a tax credit scholarship program; pushed by Rauner, the GOP, and Bishop Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Invest In Kids Act allowed citizens and businesses to redirect the taxes they owed the state to instead go to support private schools.

Tax credit scholarships create the illusion that taxpayers are not footing the voucher bill. But the Invest In Kids tax credits create a hole in the budget as large as $75 million; taxpayers either fill the gap by paying more, or accept cuts in services. Directly or indirectly, taxpayers pay the price for tax credit scholarships.

The program was written to last only five years. It was then extended for one more year. In the interim, the usually-blue state has replaced Bruce Rauner and his Scott Walker aspirations with Governor J. B. Pritzker, a Democrat who has aggressively positioned himself as the antithesis of GOP figures like Ron DeSantis (Pritzker calls him an “extremist”).

Will the voucher law survive in a state that has renewed its blue?

Vouchers and tax credit scholarships are often used as a way to get around the wall between church and state, and Illinois appears to be no exception. An analysis of Illinois Department of Revenue reports by Illinois Families for Public School found that 95% of the vouchers are used to attend a private religious school.

Those religious schools are allowed to discriminate in ways that would be illegal for public schools. Many voucher-accepting schools do not offer accommodations or support for students with special needs, while other go even further in their discrimination.

Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi Academy of Chicago reserves the right to expel any student whose family listens to secular music. Rockford Christian Schools will not enroll s “parent with a child at home.” Westlake Christian Academy of Greyslake will not admit students if they or their custodial parents maintain a “lifestyle” that violates biblical principles; this would include “promiscuity, homosexual behavior, or other violations of the unique God-give roles of male and female.” In fact, Westlake only accepts students from families in which one parent is “a born-again Christian.” These sorts of restrictions are common to many of the schools participating in the state’s voucher program. Taxpayers are footing the bill for this discrimination.

The circumventing of the church-state wall is facilitated by a scholarship granting organization (SGO). The taxpayer or business gives money to the SGO which in turn passes it on to schools in the form of “scholarships” while keeping a cut for themselves.

While Illinois has around a dozen SGOs, one in particular dominates the field. The group was previously known as Freedom to Learn Illinois, then One Chance Illinois, and, according to news reports, helped write the Invest In Kids law. They then became Empower Illinois and, despite a lack of experience in SGO work, became the preferred SGO of the Catholic Church. More than half of the state’s private schools are Catholic, and they aimed their donors at Empower Illinois; within a year, Empower was handling almost three of every four dollars run through the program.

Empower Illinois’s board includes several business and investment figures, including Jim Perry, who was also the founding chair of the Archdiocesan School Board and served there eight years. One of their principal lobbyists is Juan Rangel, previously at the center of the UNO Charter School scandal.

Much of the support for the bill has come from groups that operate from outside Illinois. Americans for Prosperity (the Koch brothers’ 501c4), the American Legislative Education Council (ALEC), and the American Federation for Children (Betsy DeVos’ 501c4) have all thrown weight behind Invest In Kids. These same groups have been working hard in other states to push voucher programs, creating a “grass roots” push that is really out-of-state astroturf.

These proponents argue that tax credit scholarships like this don’t involve spending tax dollars on private religious schools because the state never actually touches the money. Last December, Kentucky’s Supreme Court struck down the state’s tax credit scholarship program, finding the argument specious. “The money at issue cannot be characterized as simply private funds,” they wrote, “rather it represents the tax liability that the taxpayer would otherwise owe” and puts the state in the business of “raising sums” for private schools.

On top of all this is a body of research that shows that vouchers have negative effects on student achievement. Educationally, vouchers just don’t work.

Will Illinois politicians let Invest In Kids ride off into the sunset? Or will they listen to calls to extend the law or even make it permanent? It’s hard to predict. Blue Chicago has produced many pro-school choice Democrats from Arne Duncan (an old Rauner buddy) to Rahm Emmanuel (who had his own voucher conversations with Bishop Cupich), while Paul Vallas, who has a long history of school choice advocacy, is now making a credible run for mayor with his fresh Democratic credentials.

But after five years, Invest In Kids has diverted millions of dollars to private religious schools while requiring taxpayers to fund discrimination. It’s time for Illinois taxpayers to let their legislators know how they feel about this deal.

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