>> Federal Tax Credit scholarship program passed last summer as part of the so-called one big beautiful bill could bring new education funding to Illinois students.

So far, 27 states.

Most of the Republican leaning have opted in if Illinois chooses to participate.

Scholarship granting organizations could provide families with money for tutoring test prep and private school tuition.

But critics argue the tax credit initiative is a school voucher program in the skies that could divert money from already under-funded public schools.

Joining us to discuss the issue are Kasey Creswell, executive director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, a nonprofit organization aimed at improving Illinois's public school system.

Bobbie Sylvester, vice president of the Urban Center, Chicago, based organization focused on developing centrist leaders and a, quote, commonsense policy agenda.

Thank you both for joining us.

We appreciate it.

So by the semester can give us a server rundown of this program.

What it would mean for Illinois students if the state were to opt in.

Sure.

Well, what it would mean is that potentially billions, if not 10's of billions of dollars could come to benefit education of children in Illinois, both at public and private institutions.

So our public schools and our private schools could all benefit.

>> And the way that this works is individuals, federal taxpayers can make a donation to the scholarship granting organization and that scholarship granting organization then use those funds to provide educational opportunities for kids, whether that's tutoring bus services, or private school tuition or, you know, there's just a long list of things that can be used for.

can see your organization along with 44 others wrote a letter to Governor JB Pritzker, urging him not to opt-in to the program.

What are your concerns?

>> As we've seen with voucher programs around the country about send public tax dollars to private schools who do not have to serve all kids.

And there's a lot of discrimination issues at private schools, especially for example, students with disabilities.

If you place child in private school, you're giving up their rights to free appropriate public education that you have in a public school.

And so really those discrimination issues and the lack of oversight and transparency and accountability for public dollars spent as vouchers.

It is the big issues without your programs >> You know, Bobbie, what do you make of the the argument that this program would be diverting funds away from public schools toward private schools?

Yeah, it's simply not true.

The reality is that the federal government continues to provide funding for education.

The state government continues to provide funding for education and then the vast majority of funds come from property tax payers at the local level.

And its important to note that the state of Illinois has never spent more money on public schools and certainly there is a focal formula.

The evidence base funding formula that calls for more.

We think that's great.

That should be continued and encouraged.

But there's certainly the opportunity here to bring billions of dollars to public school students.

And since most Illinois students are public school students, they would benefit the most if Governor Pritzker into this program.

You know, Kasey Bobby mentioned earlier, you know, families who received the scholarship funds, they could use them for a range of expenses, you know, could be tutoring, could be test prep.

Do you think most families might use the money for those services rather than for private school tuition >> so what we do over the program so far is that states are not going to have the option to regulate the so-called scholarship organizations.

That's the voucher distribution funds.

And so those can be set up by essentially anyone who can set up a 5, one C 3 and the dollars will go to whoever that organization wants to support.

So there are already very large multi state U.S.

yos existing around the country.

And those are really set up to benefit from this program and they have the infrastructure and the advertising and marketing, for Betsy DeVos is nonprofit has set up a seed fund to make sure that studios that go to private schools will have the way to reach taxpayers, who will then senator tax dollars to those organizations.

So it's really to the extent that it can benefit private public schools that will be in communities that can set up the sort studios.

And if the state is not regulating them, I think we'll see something very similar to what we see in.

For example, Chicago, with friends of organizations, the Federal Reserve Bank to the big study of those organizations back in 2023.

And they really benefit the post wealthy schools wealthy communities.

And to the extent that we're going to see public schools benefit from any of these dollars, I think that's really going to be concentrated.

And while the communities to get what do you make of that argument, body, that it's just going help folks who are already fairly well off?

>> Yeah, I don't think that's going to be true at because there's mobilization happening and certain areas, right to make sure that public school students benefit as well as that low income students benefit.

>> And so I had to take the first part, you know, Dr Stafford, someone that I for Matt, he's superintendent public school superintendent from Southern Illinois.

He's already working to organize an sto for his school district so that he can take advantage of these funds and make sure that he's capturing as many dollars as possible for his students here in Illinois.

Now for the private schools.

If it was, it's generally can be used for tuition for the percentage that goes to private schools and it's going to go to students who cannot otherwise afford to attend a private school.

And that's what is certainly we expect to happen.

You know, Kasey, and in that letter to Governor Pritzker, we organization argued that this program pretty closely resembles the invest in kids program.

The Illinois operated between 2017 2023.

>> How did that program shape your view of this new initiative?

>> I think the key problems with that program that we really saw were one discrimination.

We saw discrimination against students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, undocumented immigrant students pregnant parenting students, students that had abortions.

Policies discriminating.

It's those students or in some staff and families were on the books in many, many schools that were getting public dollars.

So that was a huge problem.

Another promise that the oversight was really lacking.

And we had fairly well designed program priced out or programs go.

But we still could.

did not have exact dollar amounts that we're going to each school, the breakdown and information about the demographics of students was weak.

They were supposed to be annual testing during that program and we only got testing one time and one annual report in 6 years and even that limited oversight is not going to be present in this federal program.

It's going to be even weaker.

And so that really is just, you anyone worried about where their federal tax dollars are going to go?

Should be concerned about that.

>> just a couple things there.

So one item point to note that this is taxpayer driven decision meeting.

You as the individual get to decide which has geo that you donate to.

And so you get to choose, right?

So it's not that it's just going to somewhere right?

You're going to know because you have to take action to direct it to very often your local area, right to benefit students who could use those those funds.

But what do you make of that argument that, you know, critics saying this could go toward schools that are discriminating against certain classes of students.

Lgbtq kids, students with disabilities.

Yeah, I think that's a red herring.

think that's inaccurate.

I've seen plenty of private schools that I have very different policies on this and there's certainly federal and state anti-discrimination laws on the books and those have not gone away and they continue to be available to for anyone who thinks that they have been discriminated against as much as Cassie says that there's claims of discrimination.

I have yet to see actual person who has said that.

>> So to be clear, the same federal and state laws that control our regulate anti-discrimination in public schools don't really apply to private schools, especially religious schools.

So that means that the schools actually are free to discriminate in that way.

You can go on the website of the schools and see in their parent handbooks.

And and, you know, when you look at some of the data that the state Board of Education had on say, for example, special education when if you look through all the hundreds of schools that giving private school vouchers only about 15% of them reported serving any special education students.

The state Board of that.

So, you know, public schools in Illinois, 100% of our schools are serving kids with individual lies, education programs.

And that's in part because there are very strong laws.

So if you discriminate against since this abilities for their parents have recourse to pursue and make sure that they have their rights protected.

But what, you know, some supporters of this program, you know, they some of the argument is that, you know, families.

>> In a desert educational options beyond public schools that may be underperforming that may have, you know, be struggling.

What what do you make of that argument?

I mean, woman, we actually look at the data from longstanding about your programs around the country.

They do not result in better academic outcomes, especially for low-income students, for students of color, for with disabilities.

So if you're actually concerned about academic outcomes, what we need to do is strengthen our public school systems that serve 9 out of 10 kids in our state and around the country.

So that's really the important part there.

Another part about this federal program that actually different than the Illinois program.

Illinois had an income level of just a couple times the federal park proper, the poverty rate, this program has a limit of 300% of the area.

Median income.

So for the Chicago area, that means families, you know, of 4 making more than $300,000 will qualify for Boucher.

And we've seen these universal voucher programs around the country where any child from any family can get a voucher.

We've seen that next door in Iowa and that really ends up benefiting wealthy families who are already sending their kids to private school.

And that ends up being like two-thirds or more of the kids getting vouchers are in those families, you know, body during the March primaries, Illinois voters approved a non-binding referendum supporting the states participation in this program.

>> Do you expect that?

You know, Governor Pritzker will will opt Illinois into it?

certainly hope so.

And we think that this.

As people continue to understand this law, that there will be more and more very recently, the state of New York has indicated that they are going to opt in.

So that is another big Democratic state that is said that they want to participate in this program.

And so we're certainly hopeful and that is our expectation that he will act just a few seconds left.

But have you heard anything from from the governor's office on this issue?

He says he's waiting for the regulations to come out.

>> From what we've already heard from the Department of Treasury Treasury and the IRS.

I don't think we can expect the Trump administration to be creating a program that is going to help public schools because that is just not what their goal All right.

Well, we could spend probably the whole this issue, but that's all the