Religious Schools Can Get State Tuition Aid

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a decisive victory for religious freedom and school choice this week in a 6-3 ruling in the Carson v. Makin case.

The case revolved around a Maine school-choice program that allowed parents to access taxpayer dollars for private school tuition. However, Maine attempted to prohibit parents from using the program to attend a religious school.

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that a Maine private-school-choice statute violated the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion, writing:

“[T]here is nothing neutral about Maine’s program. The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools— so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion. A State’s antiestablishment interest does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise.”

In response to this important ruling, Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute said:

We are thrilled that the Court affirmed once again that religious discrimination will not be tolerated in this country. Parents in Maine, and all over the country, can now choose the best education for their kids without fearing retribution from the government. This is a great day for religious liberty in America.

Illinois Attorney General candidate David Shestokas celebrates the ruling as well, saying:

The Supreme Court affirmed this nation’s commitment to religious liberty in the case of Carson v. Makin. The court established a far reaching principle that when the government makes a benefit available it may not restrict the benefit based upon religion. While the case involved tuition assistance in schools, the principle established has the potential to extend across our civic life and keeps faith with the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the dissent. In the dissent, Breyer said the majority gave too little credence to the establishment clause and too much to the free exercise clause, saying:

The Court today pays almost no attention to the words in the first Clause while giving almost exclusive attention to the words in the second. The majority also fails to recognize the ‘play in the joints’ between the two Clauses.

Yet the Chief Justice’s majority opinion ended with these three sentences:

Maine’s nonsectarian requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program, said the chief justice, operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

This is not the first time the SCOTUS ruled to uphold the religious exercise clause regarding taxpayer tuition aid for religious schools. In its June 2020 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Court struck down a state scholarship program that excluded religious schools. And in 2017, the court found in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer that a church-owned playground can be eligible for a public benefit program.

Bottom line: The government should not discriminate against citizens who would choose to use their tuition-assistance for faith-based schools schools. Carson v. Makin is a victory not just for religious freedom but also for educational choice.

Written by Jorge Gomez

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a potentially landmark case challenging a Maine law that bans families from participating in a student-aid program if they choose to send their children to religious schools.

The Institute for Justice (IJ), along with First Liberty as co-counsel, represents the parents in Carson v. Makin, and will argue the case in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021-22 term.

Let’s quickly recap what this case is about, including what implications the final decision could have for the liberty of students (as well as their parents) to choose which school they attend and whether they’ll face discrimination for pursuing a faith-based education.

Choose Your School—Unless it’s Religious

Maine has a 200-plus year tradition of using government funds to ensure education for its residents. Historically, some towns would provide for families to send their children to private academies, often run by religious organizations.

In 1903, the state passed a law ensuring that all children would have access to primary and secondary education. But not every community had enough money—or students—to justify building their own schools.

To this day, when a school district does not provide a public high school, Maine compensates for this by helping fund tuition at any public or private school that families choose, unless it is a religious school. This religious restriction wasn’t always there, though. Throughout most of the program’s history, parents could choose religious schools and still participate in the tuition program.

That changed in the 1980s, when Maine’s Attorney General declared that it was unconstitutional to include religious schools in the program. Later U.S. Supreme Court cases clarified that allowing school-choice program participants to select religious educational options did not violate the Establishment Clause. Allowing families to independently choose from an array of schools which may or may not be religious in no way violates the Constitution.

However, Maine did not remove the religious exclusion from its program. Despite previous lawsuits, Maine continued to deny families in “tuitioning towns” the choice to send their child to a religiously affiliated school under the school choice program.

Hope for Victory: What the U.S. Supreme Court Has Already Said

Looking ahead to the upcoming oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, there’s reason to have hope that First Liberty’s and IJ’s legal teams can achieve a victory on behalf of the families we represent who are challenging Maine’s religious discrimination.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court recently issued two decisions favorable to the constitutional rights of students and religious schools.

The first is Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017). Trinity Lutheran Church in Missouri applied in 2012 for a state program that used recycled tires to pad its playgrounds. The church runs a pre-school, but not all the students attended the church. The playground is also open to everyone in the community. Still, the state refused to let Trinity Lutheran Church improve the safety of its playground via the state program. Why? Because it was religious.

In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that religious organizations such as Trinity Lutheran could participate equally in taxpayer-funded state programs. In fact, by excluding Trinity Lutheran, the state of Missouri was discriminating on the basis of religion and violating the Constitution.

The second favorable ruling for religious liberty came in 2020, when the Institute for Justice won the landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. In that case, the Court held that states cannot bar families participating in student-aid programs from choosing religiously affiliated schools for their children. The Court held that discrimination based on the religious “status,” or identity, of a school violates the Constitution.

In light of these precedents, First Liberty and IJ argue not only that the U.S. Supreme Court has given the green light to include religious options in a school choice program, but also that barring parents who choose religious options from participating in school choice programs violates the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses.

With the Maine School Choice case, the U.S. Supreme Court has a prime opportunity to reaffirm that in America, families should not be excluded from participating in widely available public benefits only because they choose religious schools for their children.

This article was originally published at FirstLiberty.org.

Written by Rey Flores

Parents have plenty of concerns as they do their best to raise their children. From the moment they are born, God entrusts parents to make the best choices for their children regarding everything from their basic needs to how they are educated.

For a very long time, most families have had no choice when it comes to the schools their children attend. Income and neighborhood determine which schools families will have to send their children to, and for many Illinoisans those schools are dangerous, underperforming, and engaged in indoctrination. Far too many government schools are led by school administrators and faculty who care more about union activities and Leftist sexuality indoctrination than they do about children. 

In recent years, school choice has been a battle many parents have joined, because it should not be only wealthy parents who have the freedom to choose their children’s schools. All parents should have that freedom.

The latest challenge Illinois parents face is trying to save a fairly new private scholarships program that enables parents to have available better education options for their children and empowers parents to exercise their parental rights. If Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has his way, this program will end.

The “Invest in Kids Program” website summarizes how this program works to help provide donor-powered scholarships for Illinois families:

 “Illinois enacted the Invest In Kids Scholarship Tax Credit Program in 2017. This program offers a 75 percent income tax credit to individuals and businesses that contribute to qualified Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). The SGOs then provide scholarships for students whose families meet the (low and middle-income) income requirements to attend qualified, non-public schools in Illinois.”

According to Empower Illinois, SGO’s have raised over $61.5 million dollars from thousands of individual donors who want to help provide these scholarships and a bright future for Illinois students, schools and communities.

School choice is critical to Illinois families. It offers children much-needed opportunities to reach their educational potential early in their formative years and on through the ninth grade. Denying school choice to Illinois families is condemning kids to subpar, politicized education simply because of their family’s socio-economic status and geographic location.

Pritzker, who seeks to limit the freedom to choose for less privileged Illinoisans, comes from an affluent and influential family, who sent him to the elite and pricey Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, where cultural luminaries like T.S. Eliot, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and James Taylor attended.

Without the “Invest in Kids Scholarship” program, most low- and middle-income Illinois families will never have the incredible educational opportunities that Pritzker (and his children) enjoyed and from which they benefitted. Giving a quality educational opportunity to these children today is a long-term investment in the growth of our state’s success tomorrow. Denying Illinois children this opportunity today is denying the success of Illinois tomorrow.

The #SaveMyScholarship campaign organized by Empower Illinois, and the many parents of the Tax Credit Scholarship Community with whom the organization collaborates, are working diligently to convince Governor Pritzker not to eliminate the “Invest in Kids” program.

The campaign is also educating and encouraging Illinois lawmakers about the importance of this five-year pilot program. The governor’s proposed budget would phase out the program over the next three years so that the state can direct revenues to public schools.

As The Center Square recently wrote,

“Opponents of the program have said the tax credits given to donors is revenue that could have potentially gone to public schools. The loss of public-school students to private schools also represents a loss in government funding that’s tied to total students attending the districts. In his budget proposal, Pritzker estimated cutting the program in half would bring $6 million into the state’s coffers in the fiscal year beginning in July (2019).”

What Pritzker is proposing is preposterous. He is attempting to do away with a potentially terrific program before it has time to demonstrate its efficacy. Pritzker and other supporters of his budget proposal would rather keep kids corralled in public schools that have amply demonstrated over decades their inability to provide good educations to Illinois children.

For more information and to join the #SaveMyScholarship #SMS campaign, click here.

In August 2017, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Invest in Kids Act as part of a budget package and allocated $75 million for scholarships through tax-credit contributions. This legislation funds scholarships for qualifying low-income students to attend the nonpublic school of their choice.

The Children’s Tuition Fund of Illinois (listed as ACSI Children Education Fund on the state website) is officially authorized to serve students, schools, and contributors as a Scholarship Granting Organization and began accepting contributions on January 2, 2018. Your contribution can help private Christian schools across the state and, in the process, help families escape government schools.

Contributors to this scholarship program receive 75% of their contribution as a state tax credit. This is much more than just a deduction.

For example, if you owe $750 in Illinois state income tax and you contribute $1,000 to CTF IL, you eliminate your entire income tax liability because 75% of $1000 is $750. Almost all of your contribution ($950) goes to your designated school(s) for scholarships! Both businesses and individuals can participate. Please note that this credit is for the 2018 tax year—not for the 2017 tax year.

Since donations have been capped at only $75 million for the entire state, it is critical to make your donation quickly now that the system has opened on January 2, 2018.

To make a donation, you first need to register. This requires going to https://MyTax.Illinois.gov, registering on the site, and awaiting a confirmation “Letter ID” from the State. There is a great video of the process on the Invest in Kids Act website. Once you receive your Letter ID you must go back into MyTax.Illinois.gov and complete your registration.

If this sounds interesting to you, please take the first step of getting a Letter ID from the state so that you can finish the registration process. My letter only took a few days to receive, but if possible do this first step today!

Please visit https://MyTax.Illinois.gov today! Then select REGISTRATION in the menu on the upper right. And then choose “Sign up for a MyTax Illinois account.”

In Christ,

Pastor Calvin Lindstrom
Christian Liberty Academy

Written by Aaron Bandler

Giving parents the ability to choose which schools their children attend can turn lives around. Just ask Denisha Merriweather, whose life was transformed thanks to the opportunity to attend private school through a voucher program.

Merriweather explains in PragerU’s latest video that she “was often confused and frustrated” during her time in public school, frequently struggling with the course material. When she asked her teachers for help, they were unable or unwilling to give her much guidance. Eventually, she “stopped asking questions.”

“I stopped asking questions and I withdrew into myself,” said Merriweather. “I failed third grade — twice. Fourth and fifth weren’t much better. I lashed out by getting into fights with my classmates. D’s and F’s filled my report card. I was going nowhere. I was just another black kid in the warehouse.”

The trajectory of Merriweather’s life was radically altered when she began living with her godmother, who sent her to a private school thanks to a school voucher program. At the private school, Espirit de Corps Center for Learning, her teachers were able to figure out a way to make the material understandable for her.

“Instead of dreading my classes, I began to look forward to them,” said Merriweather. “Instead of fistfights, I began doing community service work. I even earned the National Police Athletic League’s Girl of the Year award in 2009.”

Merriweather ended up being the first in her family to graduate high school; she would go on to be the first in her family to graduate college with a Master’s degree.

“Without school choice, none of this would have been possible,” Merriweather said. “Why is it so hard to grasp? Why are so many people so resistant to children and parents having a choice of schools? The system, especially for economically disadvantaged kids, is broken.”

Those who are against school choice argue that it diverts money “from students who need it the most”; however, the answer isn’t more money, it’s more competition.

“Prosperous parents can choose where to send their kids to school – public, private, or charter –wherever they have the best chance to succeed,” said Merriweather. “Why shouldn’t all parents have that choice? We have the money to make it happen. We just need the will.”

Watch the full video below:

This article originally posted at DailyWire.com.

SAVE THE DATE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2017

Illinois Family Institute’s
Faith, Family and Freedom Banquet

In an interview posted at the Accuracy in Media website, Lt. Colonel Allen West delivers what conservatives have come to expect from him since his arrival on the national political scene back in 2010 when he was elected to Congress from Florida.

We are thrilled to announce that Lt. Colonel Allen West (Ret.) will be giving the keynote address at IFI’s 2017 Family and Freedom Fall Banquet. As an outspoken advocate for the family and freedom, West is becoming known as one of the great conservative spokespersons of our time, and for good reason.

West firmly believes inspiring hope for this generation and those to come is critical to our nation’s future. He is an author and was a conservative leader in Congress. Currently he contributes to Fox News, works with the London Center for Policy Research, writes for various media outlets and is the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a public policy research organization.

Whether the topic is military readiness (“people sittin’ around at a desk pushin’ pencils don’t protect the nation”), or education (“the money should follow the child”), or the political swamp that is Washington, D.C. (“they chase the news cycle…sooner or later you gotta have an adult in the room that does not chase the news cycle”), Colonel West’s delivery is that of a decorated military veteran impatient with those who are “worried about political gimmicks.”

In the interview, West hit Democrats hard: “[T]he other side says they’re all about pro-choice, but not when it comes to education, not when it comes to tax policy or anything else, only when it comes to killing kids.”

Earlier this year in an op ed titled, “The Grand Delusion of the Progressive Left,” West wrote that one “case of delusion was to try and make the American people believe that Keynesian economic policy, tax and spend, was still viable.”

Obama in his eight years focused more on wealth redistribution, you know, we all do better when we “spread the wealth around.” Furthermore, Obama made the seminal statement which presented a window into the mindset of the progressive left when he stated, “if you own a business, you didn’t build that.” There could be no more disrespectful, delusional, assertion directed towards the hard working American and their indomitable entrepreneurial spirit.

Obama and his disciples of economic disaster failed to grasp the concept that economic growth emanates not from Washington DC, but rather from the policies that unleash American investment, ingenuity, and innovation…along with production and manufacturing.

Days before Donald Trump was inaugurated, West wrote about “The Future of Conservatism in America.” He emphasized the need to get capital investment into economically depressed urban areas. Also needed are policies that will strengthen the traditional two parent home, especially in the black community which has fallen from almost 77%, prior to Johnson’s policies, to now 24%”:

What policies will give parents better educational opportunities, choice, for their children, not relegating them to failing government schools? Interesting, Barack Obama canceled the DC school voucher program, yet dispatched his kids to the prestigious Sidwell Friends School. For progressive socialism, it is about do as we say, not as we do.

What policies will create a safe environment for all Americans reestablishing the rule of law and order in our communities? The travesty that is Chicago must end, and sadly it is a cancer that has metastasized all over our Nation.

Conservatism is the answer, whereby progressive socialism, totally emotional based, has only served to exacerbate these issues and make them worse. And in response to the failures, it becomes a game of seeking blame, not one of self-reflection, you know, it is the fault of Fox News and the Russians.

“I was born and raised in the historic inner city Atlanta neighborhood called the Old Fourth Ward,” West writes, and notes that his parents were registered Democrats, but that they “inculcated in me these foundational conservative values — faith, family, individual responsibility, advancement through education, and service to the Nation.”

“I was not just blessed to have two superb parents,” West writes, “but parents who were American Patriots.”

SAVE THE DATE: Friday, October 27, 2017 at The Stonegate in Hoffman Estates.

Our Private Reception begins at 6:00 PM and costs $150.00 per person; which includes hors d’oeuvres, your picture with Col. West, a signed book and the main banquet.

Dinner begins at 7:00 PM and costs $80.00 per person if purchased before Labor Day.

Reserve your tickets online today or call the IFI office (708) 781-9328 to or click HERE to make your reservations.

Program advertisements & banquet sponsorships available.

By Alicia Constant — World Magazine

More Indiana parents are choosing to send their children to private and parochial schools in the state, which has enacted the nation’s largest school voucher program.

More than 3,200 students received vouchers to attend private schools this year-with nearly 70 percent of them attending Catholic schools.

Catholic schools are in the minority among Indiana private schools but received a majority of vouchers because many are venerable and already have state accreditation. They also have more space: One Catholic school in South Bend had seen enrollment dwindle from 702 students in 1953 to 135 last year. This year, due to the voucher program, enrollment has jumped to 212 students.

Most voucher systems enacted elsewhere in the United States are limited to poor students, those in failing schools, or those with special needs. But in Indiana, any student whose family has a household income less than $60,000 is eligible.

Because of the popularity of the program, public school officials have been contacting parents of voucher students, begging them to keep their children in the public schools. And these administrators have strong incentive. For example, if families in South Bend who signed up for vouchers don’t return, administrators there estimate they will have $1.3 million less to spend.

“They’re making the argument that the money belongs to the system and not to the parents,” said Robert Enlow of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

The vouchers in Indiana are government-issued certificates that allow parents to pay private school tuition with tax money they would have normally paid to public schools.

Nate Schnellenberger, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, complained that “public money is going to be taken from public schools, and they’re going to end up in private, mostly religious schools.”

The teachers’ union, which is suing, claims the voucher program is in violation of “the separation of church and state” since only six of 240 participating private schools in the state are secular.

But Enlow called the lawsuit a “misdirection,” adding that parents are simply choosing available schools: “We’re giving aid to students, not aid to religion.”

State Senator Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) has introduced SB 1932, the “School Choice Act,” which would provide to parents vouchers worth up to $3,800 or the actual tuition of a private school, whichever is less. Vouchers would be available to students in grades 1-8 who attend “low performing” or “overcrowded” schools in the Chicago School District 299.

Low-performing schools are those that rank in the lowest 10 percent in terms of the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, and “overcrowded” schools are those that have 70 percent or more low-income students and are among “the most severely overcrowded 5 percent of schools in the district.”

This bill should receive unequivocal, enthusiastic bi-partisan support. Anyone who cares about the welfare of children and the right of parents to determine how their children are educated should support this bill.

Those on the left who care deeply about “choice” should support this bill. Those who support a mother’s right to choose to end the life of her baby and who support children’s right to choose their “gender,” should certainly support the right of parents to choose where their children spend seven hours a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years.

Those on the left who claim to care deeply about “social justice” should welcome this bill because it enables parents and legal guardians who have fewer material advantages than many to escape the worst performing schools in the city — schools in which no child should spend their days. The School Choice Act would provide these parents with just a fraction of the freedom that Barack Obama had when he chose to send his daughters to one of the most prestigious private schools in the nation where tuition runs about $30,000 per student, per year.

Some questions:

• What possible reasons could there be to oppose this bill other than political indebtedness to teachers’ unions who fear the effects of competition on their jobs?
• Why should schools that parents don’t want their children to attend and that are staffed by teachers whom parents don’t want to teach their children continue to operate?
• How do legislators who oppose school vouchers justify compelling disadvantaged parents to send their children to substandard and often dangerous schools to which they, the legislators, would never send their own children?

It seems that only a callous and self-serving legislator could oppose such a just, compassionate, and reasonable bill.

Contact Sen. Maloney and your State Senator ask them to drop this unwarranted expansion of government.

A deeply troubling bill (SB 136) has been proposed in the Illinois General Assembly by State Senator Edward D. Maloney (D-Chicago) that will affect all children in non-public schools, including home schools.

Existing school code permits the voluntary registration of non-public school students with the state. If SB 136 were to pass, it would compel all parents or legal guardians of home or privately schooled students to register with the state. Registration that is now voluntary would become compulsory. The arguments used to justify such compulsory registration are specious and reveal underlying flawed assumptions.

Sen. Maloney has expressed concern that those who homeschool their children are not accountable to anyone — and by anyone, he clearly means any government employee. Does Sen. Maloney actually believe that the state has proved itself better at educating children than parents who homeschool?

What Maloney fails to acknowledge is that many of these parents know that they are accountable to a much higher authority than the state. They know that they are accountable to God for the manner in which they educate, train, and nurture their children as well as how they steward their time, talents, and resources.

Proponents of mandatory registration fail to address the serious problem of requiring parents to register with a government entity that is actively engaged in undermining their political, moral, and theological beliefs. At significant personal costs, these families are trying through homeschooling to avoid the subversive ideological indoctrination in which many public school teachers increasingly engage.

Proponents fail to acknowledge that bias and censorship pervade public school curricula. The problems in public schools involve not merely what troubling ideas are being promoted to students but what ideas students are never exposed to because of systemic bias and censorship.

Proponents of this bill fail to address the likely, if not inevitable, slippery slope from registration to regulation. While SB 136 requires parents only to register their children with the state, it’s naïve to think that our bloated and still ravenous state bureaucracy will not expand its purview to dictate curriculum, administer tests, monitor or evaluate student progress, require certification of those who serve as teachers, and/or mandate home visits by state officials — all in the service of protecting children, of course.

Those in favor of mandatory registration fail to provide any evidence for the need for such registration. Such evidence would need to be something far more substantive than anecdotal accounts of a few homeschool parents who have failed to educate adequately their children. And such evidence would need to prove that homeschooled students are failing at higher rates than students in public schools. If there were evidence, for example, that homeschooled students have poorer test scores; higher rates of suicide or drug and alcohol use; greater involvement in gang activity; feel less safe; have lower admission rates into colleges and universities; or have lower college retention and graduation rates than public school students, then perhaps there would be a case for mandatory registration.

Since current research suggests that homeschooled students actually score higher on average than public school students, the effort to mandate registration must be driven by the baseless assumption that government bureaucrats are inherently more effective at protecting and educating children. If this assumption weren’t so gallingly presumptuous, it would be laughable.

Let’s take a moment to clarify for hubristic politicians and public educators (which does not mean all public educators) what some current research reveals about homeschooled students.

The following statistics come from a 2009 study that explored “academic outcomes of home school students attending a medium sized, doctoral institution located in the Midwest”:

Homeschool students ACT Composite score 26.5–Public school ACT Composite score 25
Homeschool students ACT Reading score 28.2–Public school ACT Reading score 25.6
Homeschool students ACT English score 27.8–Public school ACT English score 24.5
Homeschool students ACT Science score 25–Public school ACT Science score 24.5
Homeschool students ACT Math score 24.6–Public school ACT Math score 24.7

The college retention rate for homeschool students was 88.6 percent as compared to 87.5 percent for public school students.

First year GPA for homeschool students was 3.41 as compared to 3.12 for public school students.

The four-year graduation rate for homeschool students was 68.7 percent as compared to 58.6 percent for public school students. (For more information on the academic success of homeschool students click HERE.)

Problems like poor test scores, high dropout rates, teenage pregnancies, teenage suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and gang activity are not common problems within the homeschooling community as they are in many government schools. Unmotivated teachers too are uncommon among home schools.

So, Sen. Maloney believes that all homeschool and private school students in Illinois, including those who fare better than public school students, should be forced to register with the state that has demonstrably and miserably failed countless students over many years?

Has anyone calculated the additional costs to our bankrupt state that will be incurred if unwarranted compulsory state registration becomes the law for all non-public school students?

Government bureaucrats and educators like Bill Ayers and his “agents of change” see themselves as academic experts nonpareil and the ultimate protectors of children. As a result, they arrogate to themselves the right to intrude without warrant into family business.

Illinoisans should oppose this unjustifiable and needless expansion of governmental authority. This is especially important now as Illinois public schools stand poised to expand their advocacy of radical beliefs regarding homosexuality into every public elementary, middle, and high school, which IFI hopes will result in more families exiting public schools.

Illinois’ General Assembly failed to help failing students in the state’s worst schools on Wednesday afternoon.

Landmark school choice legislation was rejected by lawmakers from both parties Wednesday. This common sense bill would have allowed approximately 22,000 children from Chicago’s worst-performing and most-overcrowded elementary schools to transfer to private or parochial schools. Each student would have received approximately $3,700 in state money to specifically cover tuition costs at those schools. (Chicago public schools currently spend more than $11,000 per student.)

IFI’s Laurie Higgins says the vote came up short in the House despite a bipartisan effort. “It fell just 12 votes short of passing [and] we needed 60 votes. The vote was 48 in favor — 26 of whom were Republicans, 22 of whom were Democrats — and my understanding is that it was just vigorous pressure by the teachers unions that led to the defeat of this bill.”

But this does not mark the end of the road for this bill. State Rep. Kevin Joyce (D-Chicago), the House sponsor of SB 2494, requested that the bill be put on postponed consideration, which means that the bill can still come up for another vote in the House during this session — possibly after the November election. This would require some work on our part to sway 12 House members to support the bill allowing Chicago public school students in the lowest 10 percent failing schools to opt out to nearby private schools.

As expected, the Illinois General Assembly adjourned May 7 without passing a meaningful budget for the state for the upcoming fiscal year. It is likely that our sate lawmakers will return to Springfield to complete that task before a May 31 constitutional deadline.

Because SB 2494 was put on postponed consideration, no official House roll call is available. However, an “unofficial” tally was recorded by CapitolFax.com as the vote was taken on the House floor:

The Illinois General Assembly is winding up its work for this Spring session, and will try to adjourn for the summer by Friday of this week. That means that things will be moving very quickly this week. We will try to keep you posted on the issues that concern you and your family. (As a result, you may get multiple email alerts this week.)

One of those bills that we are working hard to see passed is a common sense bill that would create school choice for parents of grade school children in Chicago’s worst 49 schools. SB 2494 would allow families enrolled in one of these schools to receive a school voucher to cover qualified education expenses at a non-government school.

This bill has already passed the Illinois State Senate (33-20-3) and the Illinois House Executive Committee (10-1). We must get 60 votes to pass it on the House floor before it can be sent to Gov. Patrick Quinn for his signature to become law.

But as you can imagine, government bureaucrats, the Chicago Teacher’s Unions and the ACLU are fighting tooth-and-nail to keep their power over public schools despite what is in the best interest of the children! We can succeed if we have an outpouring of grassroots support. Our state lawmakers will have no choice but to pass the Illinois School Choice law.

We are making thousands of robo-calls to Illinois voters in an attempt to elicit a strong grassroots response. You can help by sending an email, fax or by making a phone call to your state representative today!

Take ACTION:  Contact your state representative to ask him/her to support or even co-sponsor this common sense piece of legislation. You can always call IFI’s office for your elected official’s name and phone number – 708-781-9328.

Read more:

Controversial Chicago School Voucher Bill to Be Voted on This Week
by Tera Williams, FOX Chicago News

Chicago – Four Republicans, one Democrat. Party lines aside, they all prayed together Sunday over a controversial bill that goes up for a vote this week.

School choice is such an important issue to Suburban Republican Legislators, Ed Sullivan, Mike Connelly, Dan Cronin, Matt Murphy and Dan Duffy, they spent their Sunday on Chicago’s Southside at the House of Hope. That’s the church of Democratic Senator, Reverend James Meeks. Meeks calls the school voucher bill his brainchild.

I think it’s going to be the best thing for failing schools that we have thought of in a long time.” Meeks, who was originally against the voucher program said he changed his mind on the issue last year. “I was an advocate of more school funding but it seems as if that is slow in coming.”

Here’s how the proposed voucher program would work. Kindergarten through 8th grade students in Chicago’s most overcrowded schools and poorest neighborhoods could get up to $3,700.00 in vouchers to help pay for tuition at their parents choice of a participating private or parochial school. The bill would apply to about 22,000 students.

If passed, the program would start next year. There is bi-partisan support for the bill, but there are major concerns too.

27th District Senator Matt Murphy says, “People are concerned that it will siphon money away from the current school system. Again, if the school system is producing 6 out of 100 college grads, that’s not good enough.”

The ACLU and the Chicago Teacher’s Union are against the bill. The CTU calls it unconstitutional and warns the program could rack up $100 million in new state costs, cause schools to close and teachers to lose their jobs.

CPS is staying neutral on the bill. It already passed the Senate and the House Executive Committee. The full House will vote on it this week, most likely on Tuesday. It’s expected to be very close.