The advocacy group Illinois Families for Public Schools were shocked by Governor Pritzker’s decision to extend the state voucher program. They were shocked because of his campaign promises not to support schools that discriminate, and they were shocked by the data showing that discrimination against students with disabilities and LGBT students is widespread among voucher schools. Most voucher schools are religious, and they are free to exclude any student they don’t want.
Illinois Families for Public Schools’ Statement on Gov. Pritzker’s Vow to Sign an Extension of the Illinois Voucher Program
Friday October 20, 2023
Illinois Families for Public Schools is profoundly disappointed at Governor Pritzker’s statement yesterday that he is committed to signing any bill sent to him that would extend the Invest in Kids voucher program.
This commitment contradicts the statements he made when he ran for governor in 2018, including his response to our candidate questionnaire:
“I oppose Bruce Rauner’s backdoor voucher program that was inserted into the school funding reform bill last year. As governor, I will work to repeal that measure.”
Worse yet, it conflicts with the values Pritzker has espoused again and again in his time in office: That Illinois is a welcoming and inclusive state where it is unacceptable to treat individuals differently because of their identity, where justice and equity make Illinois a safe space for all, where we want our young people “to become critical thinkers, exposed to ideas that they disagree with, proud of what our nation has overcome, and thoughtful about what comes next”, where K-12 schools are “liberatory learning environments that welcome and affirm LGBTQ+ young people, especially those how are transgender, nonbinary, intersex, Black, Indigenous, people of color, people with disabilities, and all communities that experience marginalization.”
Since 2018, the Invest in Kids voucher program has diverted more than $250 million in state funds to private schools, 95% of which are religious. Religious schools, even those getting public dollars, can and do legally discriminate against nearly any protected category of student, family or staff:
- At least 85 schools in the Invest in Kids program, nearly 1 in 5, have anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
- Only 13% of private schools in the Invest in Kids program last year reported to the Illinois State Board of Education that they served any special education students. The majority of schools in the program are Catholic schools, and four of six Catholic dioceses in Illinois have policies that say schools may refuse to accommodate students with disabilities.
- Policies that discriminate against pregnant and parenting students, students who have had an abortion, English-language learners, students with disabilities, undocumented students, and more are widespread in Illinois voucher schools as well.
Due to recent Supreme Court decisions, there is essentially no way to have a state voucher program that only funds non-religious schools or alternatively prohibits religious schools from discriminating based on religious belief. As such, there is no way to end discrimination in voucher schools in Illinois short of ending the program altogether.
Extending the voucher program is supported by anti-public good extremist groups, including Betsy DeVos-funded Illinois Federation for Children, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, Awake Illinois, and Moms for Liberty Lake County.
Access to a well-resourced public education is a fundamental right. Illinois public schools are still short billions of dollars in state funding needed to educate their students.
Public dollars must be for used public schools that welcome and educate all children, as well as protect their civil rights. Strong public schools are the foundation of a healthy, pluralistic democracy and are a public good that benefits everyone in Illinois.
It is unacceptable to continue the Invest in Kids program in any form.
Why is Governor Pritzker thinking so small when it comes to our public schools?
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Contact:
Cassie Creswell, 773-916-7794, info@ilfps.org
About Illinois Families for Public Schools
Illinois Families for Public Schools (IL-FPS) is a grassroots advocacy group that represents the interests of families who want to defend and improve Illinois public schools. Founded in 2016, IL-FPS’ efforts are key to giving public ed parents and families a real voice in Springfield on issues like standardized testing, student data privacy, school funding and more. IL-FPS connects families and public school supporters in more than 100 IL House districts. More at ilfps.org.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Who needs Rethuglicans when the Dimocraps do their dirty work?
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I agree with the basic premise of the post. I would also say that once you open the door to vouchers and religious schools getting them,the programs grow .
That said 250 million dollars over 5 years is a terribly small number.
50 million a year. And I am not seeing where Pritzker increased funding levels.
As some Progressive Economists say” big numbers are used frighten people “when taken out of context. To put this in perspective, the budget for the 7603 students in my district is 289 million yearly . So 50 million a year in Illinois with 1 million 843 thousand students is not exactly depriving those Public School students of much. It totals $27 dollars a year per student.
There are plenty of valid reasons to find vouchers totally objectionable. Several mentioned in the Post. Depriving Public School children of resources at the levels mentioned here is a rounding error not a burden. As long as Pritzker does not expand the program.
Apparently his position is more posturing than action, “the program is not likely to be renewed in the assembly” so saying he will sign what they send him is a political ploy.
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@Diane, thanks for sharing our statement.
@Joel, yes, the size of the program over the last five years is not one of the largest budget items in Illinois’ General Revenue Fund, ~$50 million/year, and it sounds small in comparison with the increase needed to fully fund Illinois’ public schools. We are $4.8 billion away from full state funding for our public schools.
However, in general, our state, primarily because we cannot levy a graduated state income tax is far short of the revenue we need to fund the basic public goods we need. Even while underfunding these goods for years, we still have a structural deficit. The IL-based org Center for Tax and Budget Accountability has a wealth of resources explaining our fiscal woes and the social woes caused by them. (https://www.ctbaonline.org/reports/analysis-illinois’-fy-2024-enacted-general-fund-budget) Public schools aren’t the only thing we are shorting, public post secondary education, early childhood education, health and social services of all kinds. As we head towards the fiscal cliff of post-ESSER funds, the outlook for funding public education in Illinois is not positive.
The new greatly improved funding formula, passed in 2017 at the same time the voucher program was created, allocates any new state dollars to K-12 schools to the most needy schools. The formula was designed to begin to rectify decades of inequitable funding in Illinois because most school funding was from local property taxes, and wealthier districts in Illinois got more state funding than poorer ones.
Under the new formula, an additional $50 million in new state funding for K-12 each year would go to the school districts who need it most. (https://www.ctbaonline.org/reports/educating-illinois-look-evidence-based-funding-formula)
When the new funding formula was passed, the IL General Assembly promised (!!!) to appropriate at least $350 million additional dollars towards K-12 schools each year, with the goal of reaching full funding by 2027.
And, yet, it has been a massive fight to get that additional $350M every year, and in one year there was no increase at all due to fears about pandemic-induced revenue shortfalls.
If we are only adding $350M a year, we will not reach full funding for about three more decades. The state should actually be adding about $1B+ each year to reach its 2027 goal.
There are numerous things that the state could be doing with an additional $50 million each year as anyone who has worked on the state budget or advocated for any state programs knows very well. $50 million could cover health care for immigrants not covered by federal programs. $50 million could cover some of the costs of a new universal free lunch law that our GA passed but didn’t fund. It could cover many important needs that are written into our state statutes with the caveat “subject to appropriation.”
Instead for the last five years we have sent $50 million to schools that discriminate (and the majority of them do), schools that are not subject to the same oversight or quality controls that our public schools are, schools that are in fact wealthy enough to fund their own scholarships, etc.
This is absolutely a misuse of public funds.
Beyond all this, voucher programs that continue on inevitably grow. Illinois’ program has been incrementally growing, but those in our nearest neighbors, Wisconsin and Indiana have skyrocketed since their inception. Iowa’s new program will quickly reach $300M+. There is no guarantee that we will keep our Democratic trifecta forever, and ending this program now will make it much harder to create one from scratch under other political circumstances.
Public Funds for Public Schools in a recent report “The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers” has laid out the devastatingly negative impact of voucher programs on state spending on public goods and public schools in particular (https://pfps.org/assets/uploads/SPLC_ELC_PFPS_2023Report_Final.pdf): “At the same time funding for vouchers climbed significantly in these seven states [Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin], the portion of state GDP allocated to K-12 public education decreased, even though public school enrollment grew over the same period in five of the seven states.”
We have a historic opportunity in Illinois to end a bad public policy now before it causes even more harm. I hope our legislature is able to grasp the significance of this, and lets the program end.
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