By Salem Chicago News Staff
Illinois families are once again being told to wait for public schools to improve before they’re given more say in where their children learn. For thousands of parents across Cook County, that wait has already cost their kids years they won’t get back.
Supporters of the status quo argue that choice programs drain resources from neighborhood schools. But the more pressing question is why so many neighborhood schools continue to struggle year after year regardless of funding levels, while families with the means to do so simply opt out through private tuition or a change of address.
School choice — whether through charter expansion, tax-credit scholarships, or open enrollment reform — isn’t a rejection of public education. It’s an acknowledgment that no single model serves every child equally well, and that parents, not bureaucracies, are best positioned to judge what their own kids need.
Illinois lawmakers let the state’s tax-credit scholarship program lapse in recent years, cutting off options for thousands of lower-income families who had come to rely on it. Restoring and expanding it should be a bipartisan no-brainer, not a partisan flashpoint.
The families asking for more options aren’t asking anyone to abandon public schools. They’re asking not to be trapped by them.
