Educational freedom. That’s what the Iowa legislature is set to give families in the Hawkeye State later this year with the passage of the Students First Act signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds in January.
Once the program is fully implemented by 2025-2026, every single Iowa student will have access to a taxpayer-funded Education Savings Account (ESA) of $7,600 per student. The funds can be used toward private-school tuition, tutoring and more.
“We are one step closer to providing choice in education for Iowa families regardless of income or zip code,” said Gov. Reynolds upon passing the law. Students will no longer be trapped in schools that don’t work for them or where children simply can’t thrive.
Iowa is just one of the many states dramatically expanding educational freedom, giving parents true control over their children and what and how they learn. Universal school choice programs – where all students can participate – are sweeping the nation in states like Indiana, Utah and Florida.
Contrast that to what’s happening in Illinois, where the state’s lone school choice program – a limited tax-credit scholarship program that covers just 9,000 Illinois kids – is on track to die this legislative session, after just five years in existence.
If Gov. JB Pritzker and the legislature don’t extend the Invest in Kids Act, which sunsets this year, Illinois will be the first school-choice state in the country to kill its program. Last week Wirepoints highlighted the risk of that happening.
Pritzker was already opposed to the Invest in Kids program when he became governor in 2018, stating at one point: “I’m opposed to that $75 million tax credit, that school voucher system…we should as soon as possible do away with it. What I oppose is taking money out of the public schools, and that’s what happened here.”
His obvious lack of commitment to the program was reiterated last week in his official response to Wirepoints’ commentary: “The Invest in Kids Act has to pass the General Assembly. If it doesn’t pass that would not be the Governor eliminating it, that would be the General Assembly eliminating it.”
Add to that Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union’s fervent anti-school choice stance and it’s easy to understand why the prospects for school choice in Illinois are dwindling.
It’s going to take a massive push back from the thousands of families participating in the Invest in Kids Act – and those of the 31,000 children on the waiting list – to keep school choice alive in Illinois.
Illinois residents are being short-changed. Their children are missing out on a movement that’s providing hope and better educational opportunities to millions of students nationwide.
School choice shouldn’t be at risk of dying here, it should be expanding and thriving.
To those critics who say school choice will lead to an exodus from public schools and make it difficult to hold private schools accountable, consider facts like these:
- Overall just three in 10 students in all of Illinois’ public schools can read at grade level. For black students, it’s just one in 10.
- There are hundreds of districts across the state, like those in Decatur, Rockford and Peoria, that are failing their students. We laid out the details in our report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
- In a high-end school district like Wheaton-Warrenville, only 44% of students read at grade level. Never mind that the district’s property tax revenues went up 31% in the last decade even though enrollment dropped by 16%. (To see the results for your school district, click here to go to the Wirepoints Report Card webpage.)
And overall the Illinois public school system has lost more than 10% of its enrollment, now at less than 1.9 million vs. 2.1 million a decade ago.
Parents are still feeling the sting of the draconian school lockdowns and the failed forced remote learning that had major social, emotional and educational impacts on Illinois students. What also became crystal clear during Covid is that parents have little-to-no power vis-a-via school district administrators, the school boards and the teachers unions. Many parents are also repelled by the top-down mandates on sex, race and gender that have politicized our classrooms and diminished the values of merit, competence and educational excellence.
As Illinoisans, we need to stop begging the legislature and our leaders to keep extending a small, non-inclusive school choice program. It’s time we band together and demand real school choice, real parental choice over how – and what – our kids learn.
Students First Act
With the passage of the Students First Act, parents who enroll their eligible children in an accredited private school will receive an amount equal to the per pupil funds allocated by the state to all public school districts each year. The funds are estimated at $7,598 per pupil for the 2023-2024 school year and will be deposited into an education savings account (ESA) to be used for tuition, fees, and other qualified education expenses.
Funds are deposited into the ESA savings account each year until students graduate or complete high school or turn 20 years of age. Remaining balances are returned to the state general fund.
Effective for the 2023-24 school year, ESAs will be available based on the following eligibility:
Year 1: School Year 2023-24
- All kindergarten students
- All public school students
- Private school students with a household income at or below 300% FPL; for example, a $90,000 household income for a family of four according to 2023 federal poverty guidelines
- All kindergarten students
- All public school students
- Private school students with a household income at or below 400% FPL, according to 2024 federal poverty guidelines
- All K-12 students in Iowa regardless of income
Other student funding generated by categorical funding formulas will remain with public school districts. This will include approximately $1,205 per pupil in new funding for students who live in their district but attend a private school.