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IEA President Karl Goeke thanked Pritzker for his policies.
“He’s funded new construction at Illinois community colleges and
universities. He’s helped increase the number of Illinois
students eligible for federal tuition aid, and he ended Illinois
voucher programs,” Goeke said.
Illinois’ Invest in Kids scholarship tax credit program expired
on Dec. 31, 2023. Pritzker has not opted Illinois into the
federal Education Freedom Scholarship Program ahead of the
January deadline.
Thirty-one states have opted into the initiative that allows tax
credits for donations to scholarship organizations that fund
education-related expenses for students in public, private and
homeschool settings.
Last week, the Illinois Federation of Teachers urged Pritzker to
call a special legislative session, after Illinois State Board
of Education data showed the state’s school funding gap grew by
more than $1 billion in one year.
“Today’s report should serve as a wake-up call. A child entering
kindergarten today will graduate from a high school that is
still underfunded,” IFT and Chicago Teachers Union President
Stacy Davis Gates said in a statement.
On Monday, Pritzker criticized President Donald Trump and
Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey,
calling Bailey “an existential threat” to public education.
“We don’t have to wonder what his vision for education is, we’ve
seen it through the grammar school he and his wife started,”
Pritzker said.
Darren and Cindy Bailey founded Full Armor Christian Academy in
2016.
Darren Bailey said Pritzker’s education policies have failed and
too many students are leaving Illinois.
“One of the biggest reasons why they go to other states to go to
college is because the colleges can afford to attract them. It’s
cheaper to go there,” Bailey said at the Illinois Agricultural
Legislative Roundtable in Shirley, Illinois last week.
Independent candidate Collin Corbett said the number of
adequately-funded school districts in Illinois has declined for
three consecutive years under Pritzker.
“As a result, lower-income rural and suburban districts are
falling even further behind. No kid's education should be held
back because they happen to be born in the wrong zip code,”
Corbett said in a statement provided to The Center Square.
Esther Wickham contributed to this story
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