A telephone survey of over 1,000 Illinois residents, taken shortly before the Illinois General Assembly voted to approve the state’s tuition tax credit program, showed three out of four respondents (77 percent) support the idea of permitting parents and students to choose the child’s school.
More than half (56 percent) agreed that per-student tax dollars for education should follow the student to whichever school the parent and student choose. Only 31 percent of respondents to the poll said tax money should go only to public schools authorized by the school board.
The poll was commissioned by the Glen Ellyn-based Illinois Family Institute.
In a survey conducted last year by the Metro Chicago Information Center, 62 percent of respondents in the Chicago metropolitan six-county area supported vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools, and 55 percent supported vouchers for use at religious schools. (See “Solid Support for Vouchers in Chicago,” School Reform News, July 1998.)
