Seven states enacted new private school choice programs in 2023 and 11 states expanded existing programs. But Illinois killed its Invest in Kids tax-credit scholarship program, ending the only help for nearly 10,000 low-income students.
House Bill 4417 requires an annual “Workplace Readiness Week” in all Illinois high schools, which focuses not on getting kids ready for jobs but on the labor movement’s role in the workplace.
Chicago Public Schools Inspector General’s report showed 77,505 devices were lost or stolen during the 2021-2022 school year. At 36 schools, every single student device was gone.
The Chicago Board of Education is preparing to remove police officers from public high schools. Local School Councils already have the power to remove officers, but district leaders are taking away that local control.
Research shows income and adult literacy are strongly related. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show 20% of Illinois adults are “functionally illiterate.” Cook County’s rate is 25%.
Innovation can help Chicago Public Schools improve academic proficiency, but it requires breaking up the centralized power built by the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools. Local control can improve student outcomes.
The Illinois State Board of Education failed to publish diagnostic reports required by the Invest in Kids Act to track scholarship recipients’ progress starting in 2019. State lawmakers are letting the program expire without seeing a single report.
This edition of The Policy Shop is by Mailee Smith, senior director of labor policy and staff attorney. The Illinois General Assembly has departed Springfield to go eat turkey. Most of them should be eating crow. On Nov. 9 they made Illinois the only state in the nation to roll back school choice. State lawmakers...
Illinois’ Invest in Kids school choice program for over 9,600 low-income students will end at the close of 2023. But supporters vow to resurrect it during the upcoming legislative session.
About 150 students and advocates Nov. 8 were in Springfield chanting and trying to persuade state lawmakers to keep the Invest in Kids school choice program. Parents, educators and politicians made the case during a press conference hosted by Illinois Policy.
This edition of The Policy Shop is by policy analyst Hannah Schmid. The Illinois General Assembly is back in Springfield, and so are low-income students who are among the nearly 10,000 Invest in Kids scholarship recipients. They are at the Statehouse to remind lawmakers there are real kids with futures at stake. But the teachers unions are...
Spring test data shows low-income and minority students in Chicago Public Schools continue to record low proficiency rates. The Chicago Teachers Union wants to kill a school choice program that could help those students.
Chicago students made gains in proficiency in reading and math on 2023 state assessments compared to 2022, but most students continue to perform below grade level. Overall student proficiency rates remain worse than before the pandemic.
A rally Nov. 1 outside Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office in Chicago ended with private school students finding themselves locked out of the public building. They were there to ask Pritzker to save the Invest in Kids program.