Last fall, pro-public school advocates successfully pushed the Illinois General Assembly to sunset the state’s school voucher program (aka “Invest in Kids”). A broad coalition of more than 60 local, state and national orgs made this victory possible. Rather than devoting tens of millions of dollars a year to private schools that discriminate, those dollars now go back to the state’s General Revenue Fund to support the public good—including funding our public schools.

But now that hard-won victory could be rolled back at the federal level…

Congress is considering the Educational Choice for Children Act, which would create a $5 billion national school voucher program, far bigger and with even less oversight than the program we just ended here in Illinois. If this legislation passes, it will be a major catalyst to erode public education in every state in the US.

You can read the bill here, HR 9462, and a fact sheet from the National Coalition for Public Education here. Ed writer Peter Greene has a good, detailed look at what’s in the legislation in Forbes.

The program would be set up as a tax credit scholarship program, just like Illinois’ Invest in Kids voucher scheme, where taxpayers contribute to a middleman “scholarship granting org” (SGO) and in return reduce the amount of income tax owed, dollar for dollar. The SGO middleman then transfers those funds to private schools.

Unlike Illinois’ program, this federal program would have no operating requirements on private schools, no dollar limit on voucher amounts per student, and voucher funds could also be used for homeschooling or online schooling expenses. (We’ve seen programs like the latter pop up around the country as “Education Savings Accounts,” where families can spend voucher dollars on virtually anything, including pizza ovens and amusement parks.)

The income limit for families getting vouchers under this new federal program would be much higher than under Illinois’ defunct program; rather than 300-400% of the federal poverty limit, it would be up to 300% of an area’s median income, meaning far wealthier families would be eligible for vouchers. There would be no requirements that voucher recipients ever attended public school previously. And the tax benefits to people contributing to the middleman SGOs would be far more generous—even allowing them to actually profit from their contribution.

Ever-expanding state-level voucher programs around the country have hurt public ed budgets (and in the case of Arizona, resulted in a massive state budget shortfall.)

What can you do?

We need to make sure Congress is hearing from their constituents that public dollars are for public schools, and NOT for federal voucher schemes. The majority of public school students in Illinois are in districts that need more funding, not less. Federal funding for schools is far from where it should be even under federal law.

Please call your US representative and US Senators this week:

• Find your US Rep here.
• Senator Dick Durbin: (202) 224-2152
• Senator Tammy Duckworth: (202) 224-2854

Here's a sample script to use:

This voucher legislation could be part of a tax package reconciliation bill (which only requires a simple majority in each chamber) up for passage as soon as some time in January. Although Republicans will now be controlling both the US House and the US Senate, the margin in the House is extremely narrow. Stopping this bill is possible, but it will require the opposition of every Democrat and a handful of Republicans, as well.

And while this bill is a Republican initiative, here in Illinois, the creation of our voucher program had bipartisan support, and ending it, even with a Democratic trifecta in our statehouse, was a tough slog. Calls are important to both Democrats and Republicans on this.

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We know that under the incoming presidential administration, public goods, like our public school system, will be more imperiled than ever. We must act quickly and stand firmly to defend them.

Thank you for taking an active role in protecting public education in Illinois and across the country.