Pritzker should reject the federal tax credit for private school

school choice – Gov. J.B. Pritzker faces a decision on whether Illinois will opt in to a federal K-12 education tax credit that critics say favors wealthier families.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker should resist a federal K-12 education proposal that, in practice, asks public money to subsidize private schooling decisions rather than improve outcomes for students who need the most help.

The Educational Choice for Children Act. introduced through the Trump administration. is built around a tax credit rather than direct vouchers.. Families would receive support after donating to “scholarship granting organizations,” which then issue scholarships to eligible students.. The program is capped at $3,400 for married couples filing jointly.

To qualify, students must live in households earning up to 300% of the median gross area income.. In the Chicago area, that threshold would cover a household of four making $359,700 a year.. Critics argue that eligibility levels like that make the program less about reaching low-income students and more about channeling public dollars toward families with the resources to already access private education.

Even though it operates through federal law. states must opt in for their residents to be able to claim the tax credit.. That creates an immediate policy choice for Illinois: whether to allow federal tax benefits that could effectively redirect public resources toward private tuition and related costs. including tutoring. in communities that may not benefit in return.

The question facing Pritzker is not whether parents should be free to choose private schools for their children. The debate, as critics see it, is whether taxpayer dollars should subsidize those individual choices when the intended “public good” is not supported by results.

Over the last two decades, multiple states have tried school-choice programs using vouchers, tax credits, and similar mechanisms.. Those initiatives were often justified as a way to raise student achievement.. But the record cited by opponents is sharply negative: across the past decade. they point to studies evaluating scaled-up statewide programs that found negative impacts on achievement overall. including assessments conducted by advocates for school choice.

Chris Lubienski, a Ph.D.. in education and director of the Center for Evaluation & Education Policy at Indiana University. who is also a fellow at the National Center for Education Policy. argues there is no sound basis for using public dollars to subsidize school choice.. He says the approach is ineffective and has harmed children. adding that every statewide voucher program evaluated in the last decade has produced large relative declines in learning for participating students.

Independent research raises additional concerns about how funds would be managed.. The Brookings Institution has said the legislation lacks appropriate quality control measures and transparency. and that it is likely to redirect funding from poor and rural communities toward more affluent areas.. The Education Trust similarly argues that the act would worsen inequity, warning that private schools can discriminate when admitting students.. It also points to a Wisconsin review of voucher programs in which about 15% of participating schools had admissions policies or statements that openly discriminated against students with disabilities.

There is also the fiscal tradeoff.. Funding the program is projected to cost $134 billion in lost federal tax revenue over the next decade.. Even if lawmakers choose to treat it as a tax expenditure rather than spending. critics say the result would deepen the federal deficit and increase pressure for cuts to programs that support low-income families.

The stakes are heightened by the broader pattern of budget decisions critics are already tracking. including large Medicaid-related cuts Republicans in Congress authorized over the next decade. which would help cover only part of the projected revenue loss from major tax cuts that have benefited the wealthy and large businesses.

In the end. the argument against Illinois opting in is direct: using public money to subsidize private education choices does not constitute a public service. and the evidence cited by opponents suggests the Educational Choice for Children Act is more likely to impede student achievement than improve it.. If that is the likely outcome, Pritzker’s task is not to manage a thorny compromise, but to say no.

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