John Jacob

“Without the Invest in Kids Act, these kids couldn’t afford school here and we couldn’t afford the extra scholarships. So, this has helped in so many ways.”

“There are more kids getting the exposure to the education their parents desire. Also, it has benefited all our kids, not just the ones who received scholarships.”

“A lot of the students came for different reasons. Some because of the class sizes. Parents like when their kids aren’t just lost in the numbers. A lot of them have learning challenges that we can address individually that maybe public schools couldn’t do as well.”

“The demand for private education right now is high because a lot of people aren’t satisfied with the public school system.”

“Here in Central Illinois, there was one big public school system that two weeks before school started said they were going remote or going hybrid after months of saying they were going back to in-person learning and totally changed it with two weeks to go.”

“We had kids come based solely on that decision. But then they liked it so much, they stayed even after the school districts went back to their normal mode of operations.”

“And other schools not far from here made similar decisions. Because of that we probably gained 50 kids within a year, going from 180 to 230.”

“A lot of those were tax credit scholarship recipients, too. And that’s where you see the Invest in Kids Act enables us to take care of those kids.”

“After I went to Springfield on the last day of the lame duck session, I got very interested in the Illinois budget seeing where the money is coming from. Donors get a 75% tax credit.”

“That is tax getting reimbursed to people. But we’re talking about less than 1% of what the state gets in income taxes, a drop in the bucket that’s life-changing for families across the state.”

“When we get a new student, that household’s property taxes still go to public schools, and it should relieve them because it’s one less kid they have to pay to educate and support.”

John Jacob
Principal, Bethel Lutheran School
Morton, Illinois