A solid education and satisfying employment will go a long way toward reducing crime in Illinois. State lawmakers already have a solution in place, but it needs a boost.

Allie Quigley’s team just brought Chicago the WNBA championship, but her success story started with someone donating a scholarship that let her and her siblings attend private school. The result: lessons that built a champion.

Illinois state lawmakers can give low-income students the security of an education that best fits their needs by making the Tax Credit Scholarship a permanent fixture.

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.

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.

COVID-19 has forced classes to close, but children’s educations can continue with some creativity and a wealth of free resources for online learning at home.

The Pritzker administration’s first budget proposes phasing out a school choice program for disadvantaged families. Low-income families loved the program. Public teachers’ unions decried it.

Despite that booming demand, there are political efforts afoot to crush the scholarship program.