Should you (or I) support the Quality Schools Tax Credit Act?

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 7:23 am by Jane the Actuary

Should you (or I) support the Quality Schools Tax Credit Act? 2015-06-05T07:23:25-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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This is an Illinois thing.

Here’s a link to a site promoting it; this is a bill before the Illinois legislature which would provide for the following:

Up to $250 nonrefundable teacher tax credit for the purchase of classroom supplies.
Dollar-for-dollar state income tax credit up to 75 percent of an individual or corporation’s tax liability based on the previous year’s tax filing if they donate to:
o Public or charter schools for education technology, music, arts, and sports programs;
○ District, public school, or charter school foundations;
○ Non-profit organizations that provide education-related supplemental services to public or charter schools;
○ Charter schools to pay for expansion costs; or
○ Scholarship granting organizations that provide scholarships to low and middle income students to attend private schools, with assurances that a majority of scholarships will be given to low-income students and students attending persistently low-performing or overcrowded schools.
The tax credits are capped at $200 million – split evenly between the public and charter sectors and the nonpublic education sector.

In other words, these are “tax expenditures”; because these are tax credits rather than simply deductions, this is functionally the equivalent of the state giving $100 million to private (mostly Catholic) schools, with the differentiation being that individuals are choosing which schools the money goes to, though with a narrow stipulation that the funds go to “low-income students and students attending persistently low-performing or overcrowded schools”, which I presume means that this is meant to cover scholarships to help such kids transfer out of poor-quality public schools and into private schools.

Is this the right thing to do?

Catholic schools are really struggling. At my kid’s school, until the recession hit, attendance was pretty stable; kids were even turned away. Now, attendance declines every year. Every year at this time we get the e-mail from the principal telling us which teachers are leaving due to the shrinking size. And yet I’m not sure if our school would be helped by this program — OK, strictly speaking the requirement is that the “majority,” but not all, of the money be dedicated to low-income kids, but around here, I have the impression that families hesitate to use the scholarship program that does exist for needy families because the public schools are perfectly adequate, and even offer quite a bit more in terms of enrichment curriculum.

But it’s not as if there’s any fat in the State of Illinois budget, either. And it’s the reality of Illinois politics that what’s being cut is not, say, road construction with its plentiful jobs for the politically connected, but programs for such groups as the disabled, daycare funding for the poor, and so on. (Though I confess: I skipped the latest update in today’s paper.)

At the same time, allowing Catholic schools to shut down when they could be strengthened is perhaps penny-wise but pound foolish, if each additional kid going to public schools is an extra $10,000 or $15,000 paid by taxpayers directly, when $5,000 paid indirectly might have saved them the trouble.

But on the other hand, it’s not clear that this program would have that direct an impact. After all, in order to direct $100 million to private schools, an equal amount is being directed into enrichment programs at public schools, with no restrictions about the wealth of the particular schools in question, and, all told, it may well be that a large portion of this $200 million is not new donations at all, but simply donations that would otherwise have been made anyway.

And this is all likely a moot point as I can’t find any indicator in my searches that this is being acted upon or supported by the power brokers in Springfield, Madigan and Cullerton, whose support ensures success and without whom no legislation stands a chance anyway.

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