An email sent by the Bloomington Education Association reveals that the Illinois Education Association is pressuring educators to squash the Invest in Kids Act.
The email urges teachers at District 87 to use a private email to contact state representative Sharon Chung (91st state house district) and ask her to not support the Invest in Kids Act extension or renewal.
“Call to action: The Illinois “Invest in Kids Act” program allows public tax dollars to be funneled to private schools is set to expire soon. However there are calls for its renewal. If you believe, as the IEA does, that public dollars should go to public schools contact you local representative,” states the email sent by the BEA.
Then BEA instructs teachers to use their private email address to email Chung.
The program allows donors to get a 75% Illinois income tax credit toward donations to fund school choice scholarships for qualified families throughout the state.
In a poll, 56% of voters still support the program and that 58 of the 80 parents who participated in the poll favored its extension.
Ted Dabrowski, President of Wirepoints, said it’s a shame the unions across the state are using public infrastructure to push against the small scholarship program.
“They’re using their muscle and power to block poor kids from access to good schools,” said Dabrowski.
The program benefits, mainly, under privileged kids (about 9,000) who can use the scholarship to attend a school outside of their zip code.
D87 is struggling when it comes to the literacy rate; only 15% of kids K-8th grade can read at grade level and 12% can do math at grade level.
“What are they defending? They should be fired. They should be open to innovation,” said Dabrowski. “We are defending a failed system that has no plans to make the kids literate.”
