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INVEST IN
KIDS ACT COULD REDUCE INEQUALITY, LOWER CRIME IN ILLINOIS’ BIG CITIES
Illinois Policy Institute/
Orphe Divounguy
A solid education and satisfying employment
will go a long way toward reducing crime in Illinois. State lawmakers
already have a solution in place, but it needs a boost.
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 Illinois politicians wring their
hands about how to stop the violence in Chicago and elsewhere, but researchers
already pointed the way: education and a good job are the best crime prevention
strategies.
Violent crime is up across the United States, with Cook County passing 1,000
homicides – the most since 1994 – with a month to go in 2021. The Invest in Kids
Act could be part of the long-term solution.
The Invest in Kids Act is a tax credit scholarship that allows students to
receive the education of their choosing. The recipients end up in better
schools, achieve higher test scores, higher graduation rates and improved
employment prospects.
Originally passed in 2017, this act allows individuals and corporations to
donate money for private school scholarships and receive a tax credit of 75
cents for every $1 donated. Scholarship money is awarded to families whose
income does not exceed 300% of the federal poverty level: a family of four
earning $78,600 or less would qualify, but the average is $38,403.
This summer, Gov. J.B. Pritzker attempted to cut the program’s tax credit from
75 cents to 40 cents. State lawmakers rejected his effort and instead extended
it through 2023 after it was originally set to sunset in 2022.
Pritzker’s attempt to cut the program is misguided because research shows a good
education leads to better employment prospects and less crime.
The Invest in Kids program serves the most disadvantaged youth, with almost 50%
of students participating in the program identifying as Black or Hispanic. The
scholarships give the lowest income kids access to education of their choosing,
whether it’s a private school or a customized course of education.
The results speak volumes. Research by the Urban Institute shows tax credit
scholarships raise high school graduation rates, college enrollment and college
attainment of recipients — mostly children from low-income households. In
Florida, for example, scholarship recipients were 12% more likely to go to
college. Those who had received a scholarship from grades eight to 10 were two
percentage points more likely to graduate college.
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Eighty-nine percent of
students at Chicago Public Schools are minorities – mostly Black and
Hispanic – and the public school system is failing them.
Seventy-five percent of students at the lowest-performing public
elementary schools in Chicago failed to meet standards on state
exams. More than 20% of these students scored in the lowest category
in reading, meaning they had a difficult time determining the main
idea of a persuasive essay or the plot of a short story.
And research has shown how education and jobs improve health
outcomes and reduce crime. Even before the pandemic, states with
higher unemployment rates had higher crime rates – both in terms of
higher homicide rates and higher property crime rates, according to
data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program.
According to the most recently available data from the American
Community Survey, only 26.3% of Black Chicagoans had a college
degree or higher when compared to 78.2 % of white Chicago residents
before the pandemic. In Chicago, where the homicide rate is highest
among Black residents, a small increase in college attainment among
Black men would go a long way to improve lives, livelihoods, and
reduce racial disparities in health outcomes while also reducing
crime. This is because more education leads to higher labor market
attachment. And, a stable job reduces the incentive to commit a
crime by binding people together in networks of reciprocal social
obligations.
If lawmakers are serious about reducing racial disparities and addressing crime
in Illinois’ largest cities, they should prioritize permanently extending and
expanding the Invest in Kids program.
Thankfully, lawmakers bought time by extending the Invest in Kids program by a
year, but the scholarships will be gone by the end of 2023. Making the program
permanent would not only count as one of the most progressive achievements of
any Illinois legislature – a direct transfer of resources and hope to its lowest
income residents – but also reduce crime in Illinois’ major cities.
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