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During the fall veto session that concluded Thursday, Illinois
House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, never called
for a vote a bill to extend Invest in Kids past Dec. 31, when it
expires. Nearly 10,000 students enrolled in the program are now
in limbo in the middle of the school year.
Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said state
education officials have never reported the academic performance
of participating students as required by the Invest in Kids Act.
“The governor’s administration has failed year in and year out
since 2018 to do that assessment, they're not releasing anything
and they are delaying the release this year until after the
program expires,” Curran said. “Could you be more disingenuous?”
The Invest in Kids Act requires by law that participants take
the same standardized test that students in public schools take
each spring in an effort to measure the program’s success.
Teachers unions were the main opponents of Invest in Kids, and
they funneled millions of dollars into campaign coffers leading
up to the veto session. The Chicago Teachers Union called the
end of the program a “historic win for public education.”
The Catholic Conference of Illinois did not mince words
following the end of the fall veto session.
“Due to the cruelty of the Illinois General Assembly, those
9,500 scholarships will not be available next school year. In
addition, the hopes of more than 26,000 students on a waitlist
who so desperately want a scholarship have been dashed as has
using Invest in Kids scholarships at high school-level trade
schools,” the group said in a statement.
Some lawmakers have vowed to try to restart the program during
the spring legislative session, but in the meantime, there will
be a disruption of scholarships.
“So we’re gonna continue to push for this,” state Sen. Dave
Syverson, R-Rockford, said during a news conference with
Illinois Policy. “We’ll start again in January. And we’ll try to
get this back on track because I think it’s a program that’s
clearly helped thousands of children succeed and become all that
they were meant to be.”
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