Over 9,600 low-income students rely on the Invest in Kids scholarship program to attend schools that best fit their needs. Here’s what you need to know about the program and why it is important lawmakers extend the program this fall.
Pension contributions and debt service now take up 40% of Chicago’s city’s budget.
Chicagoans reported 43% more homicides in 2022 than in 2019, the last baseline year before COVID-19 pandemic tensions ushered in two of the city’s deadliest years in a quarter century. Few communities were exempt from the rise in violent crime.
"I pulled her and her twin sister from public school because of severe bullying. There was an incident where I could not send them back.”
2022 marked a decade-high number of assaults and motor vehicle thefts in Chicago while arrest rates plummeted to their lowest level in 10 years. The first eight months of 2023 has not been much better, with a 13% increase in overall crime.
As negotiations begin on a new Chicago Teachers Union contract, expect them to push for higher pay, less work, less accountability and less competition. None of those things will lead to better educations for Chicago’s children.
Just 17% of CTU’s spending in 2023 was on representing its members – down from previous years on record.
“Words cannot even begin to express how much these scholarships can truly mean to someone. I want lawmakers to give other kids opportunities to feel the change I felt.”
But nearly 3,000 low-income students enrolled in Chicago’s parochial schools will lose their scholarships if the Invest in Kids Act is not extended by state lawmakers this fall.
“There are a lot of kids that thrive because they're helped out by these scholarships. Like for our family, my husband went through cancer twice and so it affects what jobs he can or can't do."
This edition of The Policy Shop is by policy advisor Paul Vallas. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s promises are colliding with his problems, which will be on full display today when he delivers his budget address to the City Council. There’s a $538 million projected deficit. There are over 17,000 migrants expected to cost the city...
“The power of these scholarships can’t be summarized in rhetoric or legislation. The power and potential reside with the young people.”
Nearly 500 education employees have stopped affiliating with CTU in the past year. But the number of members leaving the union could be even larger than currently reported.