No brainer: Don’t join ed program with higher costs, worse outcomes

Being governor means you regularly have to make difficult decisions on core public policies ranging from education, to healthcare, social services and public safety, each of which make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. However, one big decision currently facing Gov. Pritzker is a no-brainer: he should have Illinois opt-out of the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, which is one of the many misguided initiatives the Trump Administration embedded in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Under the FSTC, individuals who donate to “scholarship granting organizations” get a full, dollar-for-dollar federal income tax credit, which is capped at $3,400 for married couples filing jointly. SGOs in turn grant scholarships to eligible students that can cover everything from private school tuition to tutoring classes. But even though the FSTC is a federal program, a state has to opt-in for its residents to be eligible to participate.

There’s no limit on the number of individuals who can claim these tax credits, nor on the total amount of tax revenue that can be forgone to fund them, so it’ll get expensive. The Trump Administration’s own estimates are that the program will cost around $26 billion annually by 2030. That would make it the largest federal expenditure on education, totaling about $7.7 billion, or 42% more, than what the feds invest annually in educating poor kids under Title 1.

And whilst its language makes it appear as if there are many potential uses for these scholarships, every independent analysis, as well as commentary from the federal Department of Education itself, make it clear it’s all about creating a federal voucher-like system to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize sending kids to private school. That’s a really bad idea for a whole host of reasons.

For one thing, it won’t improve academic outcomes — at least if you believe in data.

Various states have implemented school choice programs, using everything from vouchers to tax credits. None of them improved education. According to Chris Lubienski, who has a PHD in education, heads Indiana University’s Center for Evaluation & Education Policy, and is a Fellow at the National Academy of Education, “Every study of taxpayer-subsidized private school voucher programs conducted over the last decade, including those done by voucher supporters, demonstrates that these programs don’t improve academic outcomes. To the contrary, they’ve resulted in large relative declines in learning for kids using the program, especially in mathematics.”

With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act already blowing a multi-trillion dollar hole in the federal budget, wasting another $26 billion to subsidize generating worse academic outcomes makes zero sense.

And no, the FSTC won’t benefit poor, disabled or minority students. Children in a family with yearly earnings that reach 300% of median gross area income qualify for scholarships. In Chicagoland, that includes a household of four making $359,700 annually. Which means the FSTC will waste public dollars on paying tuition costs for wealthy kids already enrolled in private schools — a conclusion reached by, among others, Brookings and the Education Trust.

Moreover, noting that voucher programs have “a long history of exacerbating racial segregation” and “supporting private schools that exclude students based on race, disability, religion, and other characteristics,” 16 civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and National Center for Learning Disabilities, urged every state to opt out.

Essentially, the question facing Pritzker is simple: should Illinois help blow a $26 billion annual hole in the federal budget, to subsidize a purported “education” program that won’t benefit low-income, minority or disabled children, but will result in worse academic outcomes. As I said, that’s a no-brainer, the answer is a resounding no.

• Ralph Martire, rmartire@ctbaonline.org, is Executive Director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a fiscal policy think tank, and the Arthur Rubloff Professor of Public Policy at Roosevelt University.