November 7, 2023
By: Katie Clancy
This week is the last chance for families and educational freedom advocates to urge the General Assembly to extend the Invest in Kids Act before it expires December 31.
Unfortunately, these families are up against powerful politicians and special interest groups like the teachers unions and Congressional Democrats who are pulling out all the stops to end this life-changing program.
It’s also not particularly helpful that the media is framing these private donations that uplift working families as “controversial.”
Axios, Chalkbeat, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and others keep repeating the talking point that the program is “controversial.”
What’s actually controversial is the fact that politicians are putting special interests before the desires of the families they are supposed to represent.
According to the most recent poll from Illinois Policy, 56% of voters support Invest in Kids scholarships with only 25% opposed.
The support for the scholarship program is highest amongst low income, minority families. That’s because they represent over half the families who are scholarship recipients. The families who are seeing in real time the improved educational outcomes from their children.
It is a political and moral risk for politicians to abandon these families and put politics before the people they were elected to represent.
Legislators should do the less controversial thing and support the program that the majority of Illinois voters also support.
Contact your legislator urging them to do the right thing and extend the Invest in Kids Act:
