If you knew of a state in which, according to Wirepoints (?) just 35%* of its public school students read at grade level – thus almost two-thirds do not), and you knew that non-proficiency in both english and math was especially pronounced in Black and Latino neighborhoods (more on this at the bottom of the blog)…..
…..and you knew that there was a proposal to subsidize students whose parents wanted to put them in charter schools, which do significantly better in these basic skills…..
…..would you be in favor of it?
Not if you’re Governor Jay Robert Pritzker of Illinois – a multi-billionaire who, to a great extent, owes his job to support by the state’s teachers’ unions.
Here, in its entirety (too short to excerpt) is today’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal:
Sometimes the worst political scandals occur in plain sight, even if most of the press corps chooses not to notice. That’s what happened last week in Illinois, where the Democratic-union machine killed scholarships for 9,600 low-income children.
The state and national teachers union made a priority of blocking an extension of the Invest in Kids program that provided a 75% state tax credit for donations to help families afford private schools. The unions claim the credit drained money from public schools, but public funding has increased nearly $2 billion since Invest in Kids began under former Gov. Bruce Rauner. Only 35% of Illinois children read at grade level, according to Wirepoints, so no wonder there are more than 20,000 children on the Invest in Kids waiting list.
Current Gov. J.B. Pritzker refused to help save the program, even for children currently benefiting from it. Those families will now have to find some other way to pay tuition. Empower Illinois, the state’s largest scholarship-granting organization, says it will seek private donors to cover tuition. But the most common donation was $1,000, and many of those smaller donors may disappear without the tax credit.
Gov. Pritzker is a billionaire, and his Pritzker Family Foundation could help. According to Crain’s Chicago Business Journal, the foundation has donated $8.3 million to Milton Academy, the Massachusetts boarding school Mr. Pritzker attended. It has donated $2.5 million to Duke University, according to Carolina Journal, and $100 million to Northwestern Law School, which has renamed itself in his honor. Invest in Kids is a bargain by comparison, requiring about $71 million for the coming year.
Illinois is now the first state to kill a major school-choice program. The scandal reflects the bloody-mindedness of the unions that want to snuff out even minor competition to retain their monopoly. And it reveals how little most Democrats care about the children they imprison in these failure factories
What does that tell you? If it tells you that J. B. Pritzker cares a lot more about kissing up to his teacher union benefactors than he does about the woeful educational system that is destroying children in his state, you are right on target.
Congratulations to the voters of Illinois – especially the ones who have children consigned to its public schools. You got what you wanted. Do enjoy it.
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*I have no idea what Wirepoints is or where it gets its data. But here is what the Illinois State Board of Education has to say about public school children’s performance:
Test data released by the Illinois State Board of Education once again shows the Chicago Public Schools system has not prepared students to meet proficiency in core subjects.
About three-quarters of Chicago Public Schools students cannot read at grade level on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness in 2023. Nearly 83% did not meet proficiency in math.
Chicago’s low-income students fared worse than average among CPS students in the recently released data, based on test results from spring 2023. Yet the Chicago Teachers Union and other unions want to end the Invest in Kids tax credit scholarship program providing low-income students and families with other learning options.
Do these people give a damn about the horror show that is Illinois’ public schools? Or does their concern stop at Pritzker staying in office and teachers getting their paychecks?
Well, you’ve seen the facts. You tell me.
