May 19th has come…and gone, but the General Assembly has not adjourned to end the spring session There’s no budget for FY 2024 yet, and we don’t yet know whether the Invest in Kids voucher program will be extended past the current sunset date.

Legislators will be back in Springfield next Wednesday. The real hard deadline to pass bills is May 31st, after which bills need a ⅗ majority to pass.

More than 50 local, state and national organizations are calling for the Illinois General Assembly to ensure Illinois’ Invest in Kids voucher program ends as intended after the coming school year. Full press release below.

Public schools in Illinois can't discriminate on the basis of disability status, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, pregnancy or parenting status, marital status, or religion. But under the Invest in Kids voucher program, public dollars are now going to private schools in Illinois, many of which do discriminate against students in all these protected categories.

Sources for the examples below are here.

Public dollars should be for public schools—schools that serve all children and families.

That's why IL Families for Public Schools, along with more than 50 state and local orgs in Illinois are calling for the Invest in Kids program to end—just like the IL General Assembly intended for it to do when it was created it in 2017. Call your state rep and state senator and ask them to oppose any extension or expansion of this program. You can read our most recent action alert here and everything you need to know about the Invest in Kids voucher program here.