House Bill 4076 would make the Invest In Kids Act permanent. The Invest in Kids Act provides a tax credit of 75 cents for every $1 donated to qualified scholarship granting institutions, up to a maximum of $1 million dollars. It’s currently set to expire in 2022.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker wanted to renege on the promised $350 million increase in education spending until state lawmakers pushed back. He still wants to cut the scholarship program low-income and minority students use when public education doesn’t fit them.
“We are investing in our children’s education, and that money should be allocated where we choose for them to get the education that we would like for them to receive.”
“As a parent you sacrifice to do what’s best for your child. I wanted to give my children a jump start in life. Sending them to private school was my way of setting them up for success.”
"The Empower Illinois tax credit program is something that really hits home for me, personally, and for my family and my brothers and sister."
Legislation backed by teachers unions would require the Illinois Department of Public Health to create regulations before in-person instruction would be allowed at all public, private and parochial schools. State control would replace local control.
A tax credit is providing scholarships for Illinois’ low-income and minority students, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker is targeting the program that lets them thrive when public schools are a poor fit.
“My children were struggling before St. Teresa. They were in a public school in a much bigger population of students and less accountability. They had the wrong kind of friends.”
“We pretty much did what we had to do to survive.”
“It’s tight, but the scholarships help.”
"Through the Empower Illinois website you can designate which school the funds go to, so we designate the money to our children’s school so we can say with confidence that our donations go to families at the school."
A bill to channel education dollars from duplicate bureaucracy and into classrooms or back to property taxpayers won committee approval. It is headed for a full vote in the Illinois House.
A bill that could reduce property taxes and improve education quality faces a misinformation campaign from school district administrators seeking to preserve wasteful bureaucracy. Here are the facts about the Classrooms First Act.
House Bill 7 would create a process to review and recommend consolidating school district administration, with the goal of cutting bureaucracy so the money goes to classrooms or back to taxpayers.