Last week we reported on Illinois’ approval of a tax-credit scholarship program, finally bringing some much-needed school choice to the state. This week, like clockwork, we have the mass hysteria of the Chicago Teachers Union, which knows its days are numbered:
“The program allows people and companies to get a credit worth 75 percent of their donation, up to $1 million. Lawmakers say it will provide scholarships for 6,000 to 10,000 students statewide to attend private schools, where teachers and other staff typically aren’t unionized. The students must come from households with an annual income below 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $73,000 for a family of four.
Unions argue it will take money from public education to benefit the governor’s wealthy friends. The credit “is tantamount to planting a ticking time bomb on a bus and driving through school districts throughout the state, creating even greater debt and fiscal distress,” the Chicago Teachers Union said.
Many of the more than half-dozen Democrats running for governor have vowed to try to eliminate the tax credit, if elected.”
I don’t know what kind of bomb the Chicago Teachers Unions is referring to that ‘[creates] greater debt and fiscal distress,‘ but they must have a direct supplier, because the union cost taxpayers $800,000 in legal fees alone just to reach a contract with Chicago Public Schools last year. Oh yeah, and the contract itself will cost $9.4 billion over the next four years.“
SOURCE: APNews.com
IN THIS ISSUE:
- LOUISIANA: Louisiana’s state supreme court will hear a case challenging funding for charter schools.
- ARIZONA: School choice supporters filed an ethics complaint against a group challenging the state’s recently expanded ESA program.
- OKLAHOMA: More Oklahoma families are lining up to take advantage of the state’s scholarship program for disabled children.
- DETROIT: Detroit’s charter school students score twice as high on the state’s standardized test as their traditional public school peers.
Common Core and Curriculum Watch
- SEL: The people behind the social and emotional learning craze want to assess little children’s psyches.
- RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island students will be taking a new, shorter standardized test.
- PHYS ED: Not many kids in New York are getting the physical education they’re supposed to.
- SCOTUS: The United Federation of Teachers warns its members big changes may come if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of plaintiffs who want an end to forced union dues.
- NYC: At 32 New York City schools, “the average English-math proficiency rate on state exams has not exceeded 10 percent of students for four years in a row,” the New York Post reports.
- MIAMI: Miami-Dade looks to spend $2.3 million on teacher bonuses to fix its schools.
- CAREER PREP: Districts across Colorado are transitioning their focus from college to career prep.
Teresa Mull is a policy advisor for education and an editor at The Heartland Institute.
