Time to reverse the damage done to low-income scholarship program
At a recent gathering of politicians and education advocates at a south suburban school, a fourth grade student stared at doughnut crumbs on her plate. Get up and retrieve another? Or sit quietly listening to speeches?
She chose to stay put, swinging her feet as the adults in the room talked and clapped and smiled. She was a student at Glenwood Academy, a private boarding school of brick buildings and sloping lawns tucked along the IllinoisIndiana border. The school’s administrators invited elected officials and education advocates for breakfast and a tour on a recent Tuesday morning.
This is not a school where the elite send their elite children. This is a school for children primarily from Chicago and the south suburbs whose home lives are interlaced with poverty, addiction, incarceration and instability. School is their refuge.
The good news: The academy creates a nurturing, challenging environment for the students, ages 7 to 18. Children spend the week living on campus in quaint, dormitory-style residences, and go home on weekends. They conquer reading and writing and math. They learn an instrument. They play flag football and make art and unwind with video games. They escape the chaos of their neighborhoods Monday through Friday. They get a chance. At life.
Here’s the bad news: There’s a waiting list to get into Glenwood Academy.
The school relies on private donations and scholarships from outside organizations to operate. It serves about 150 students. But it could reach more if it had additional funding.
That’s where the politicians come in. The school’s fundraising efforts through a new tax credit scholarship program,
If the program sunsets, thousands of students could be forced back into the neighborhood schools they were trying to escape.
the Invest in Kids Scholarship Tax Credit, took a hit when Gov. J.B. Pritzker as a candidate in 2018 and as governor earlier this year vowed to end it. The program allows scholarship donors to receive a 75-cent-on-the-dollar state income tax credit. Schools such as Glenwood Academy rely on those donations.
But the tax credit is controversial. It’s a broad, statesponsored attempt at expanded school choice. Teachers unions oppose the program. They don’t see school choice. They see school competition. So union-backed elected officials have voted several times to kill it. Some of those politicians were in the room that day at Glenwood Academy praising the school. Do they want more educational opportunities for low-income kids or fewer? Hard to say.
The result of Pritzker’s and lawmakers’ vocal opposition was donation depression. Donors were reluctant to support the program after it launched, given it could face swift extinction by a hostile governor and legislature. In 2018, the program did raise more than $61 million. But the goal was $100 million. It is currently serving roughly 12,000 students statewide. The hope had been more than 15,000.
Glenwood Academy served about 30 kids through the scholarship program in 2018, the year the tax credit got off the ground. This year, only three students are accessing the scholarship.
Time for politicians to undo the damage. Pritzker wisely agreed to a compromise allowing the program to continue until its sunset date of 2022, as long as the state keeps up with public education funding. But the sunset date also makes donors skittish. They want to give to a scholarship program with stability, not one that shifts based on political winds. If the program sunsets, thousands of students could be forced back into the neighborhood schools they were trying to escape.
The program should be made permanent. State law already allows for a wide range of tax credits that do not have sunset dates. This one happens to help low- and middle-income kids get the same opportunities as the children of politicians and the wealthy.
On Tuesday, lawmakers return to Springfield for the final days of their fall veto session. Legislation removing the sunset date of the Invest in Kids Scholarship Tax Credit should be filed and passed. The program deserves more support, not the current uncertainty.
The fourth grader feasting on doughnuts that morning at Glenwood Academy, and every other student whom elected officials praised and patted, need the stability of a lasting scholarship program. Lawmakers, give it to them. Make it permanent.