December 1, 2023
By: Katie Clancy
Governor Pritzker stresses patience for families who are scared of rising crime and desperate for better educational opportunities for their children.
He’s asking families to play the waiting game to see an improvement in public safety and educational outcomes. He wants you to believe his policies are working. You just haven’t felt it or seen it yet.
Governor Pritzker’s latest comments saying “it will take some time” for families in Chicago to feel safer is insensitive and statistically false. Crime in Chicago is up 18% since he took office. And up 6% just from last year. Crime isn’t going down. That’s why families aren’t feeling safe and don’t have the time or resources to wait it out.
The same goes for the 10,000 Illinois families who couldn’t wait for their local public schools to improve and applied for tax credit scholarships to provide a better education for their children. And the over 20,000 families on the waiting list.
The demand from families for more school choice options has remained high despite the fact that public school funding has increased by $2 billion since the inception of the tax credit scholarship program in 2018.
An extra $2 billion in funding has not improved incomes and has not quelled the demand from parents desperate for more opportunities. They can’t wait years when their children need to be able to read, write, and do math now so they aren’t left behind and set up for future failure.
Pritzker and the General Assembly failed to renew the one life-line families had to improve their children’s futures. They are going to leave families waiting and overlooked once again.
Instead of taking accountability for his failed leadership, Governor Pritzker blames COVID, Republican fear-mongering, and the media for misconceptions of high crime numbers and failing schools. That’s easier than reflecting on his bad policy decisions and changing course. That is easier than explaining why things aren’t improving despite being in office for five years. He can’t admit failure when he has presidential aspirations.
As he continues to try and raise his national profile and present himself as this progressive folk hero, every day families are sick of waiting and suffering as a result.
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