McHENRY COUNTY VOTE NO ON YOUR PRIMARY BALLOT!
January 27, 2026
Today a coalition of organizations delivered a letter to Governor Pritzker calling on him to act on his values and commit to opting Illinois out of a new federal school voucher program championed by the Trump administration. Full press release below.
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 27, 2026
CONTACT
Cassie Creswell
Illinois Families for Public Schools
773-916-7794
COALITION URGES GOVERNOR PRITZKER TO SAY NO TO FEDERAL SCHOOL VOUCHERS
MORE THAN 40 ORGS TELL GOVERNOR: “ACT ON YOUR VALUES AND PROTECT PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR ALL ILLINOIS KIDS!”
CHICAGO — Today a coalition of organizations delivered a letter (read letter here) to Governor Pritzker calling on him to act on his values and commit to opting Illinois out of a new federal school voucher program championed by the Trump administration.
The letter is signed by 46 community, civil rights, good government, labor and faith-based organizations, including Access Living, Citizen Action/ Illinois, Illinois Education Association, Illinois Families for Public Schools, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois NOW, Illinois PTA, Indivisible Chicago Alliance, the League of Women Voters of Illinois, National Association of Social Workers – Illinois Chapter and Trans Up Front Illinois.
“Governor Pritzker has said his goal is to make Illinois the best state in the country to raise a family: that requires well-resourced public schools that welcome all families, and educate all kids. This federal voucher program entirely undermines that goal”, said Huu Nguyen, public school parent and board member of Illinois Families for Public Schools.
The new, unprecedented multi-billion dollar federal voucher program, created by Congress in July 2025, is set to begin in January 2027. Each state’s governor will decide whether a state participates. The US Treasury Department is in the process of writing regulations for the program, with all indications that states will have little or no ability to oversee the program.
Becky Simon, president of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, warned, “School vouchers will spend our public dollars in ways that are not transparent, and voucher programs lack the accountability and oversight provided by public school systems. As bad as Illinois’ now defunct state voucher program was, this federal program will likely be far worse.”
Private schools, even those accepting publicly-funded vouchers, are not subject to the civil rights laws that public schools in Illinois must follow. “School vouchers perpetuate and expand harm against trans and disabled students, staff, and communities by redirecting funding from the public schools that require LGBTQ+ inclusive practices and curriculum into private, religious schools that openly discriminate against LGBTQ+ young people and refuse to adopt inclusive practices for special education students every day.” Dr. Corey Lascano, director of education for Trans Up Front Illinois.
“The federal government has been waging a de facto war on schools, cutting and withholding funds for education research, afterschool programs; removing schools from the list of sensitive sites for immigration enforcement; ending investigations of civil rights violations. The idea that a program created with the intent to dismantle the public school system might be good for Illinois’ children is not plausible. It is beyond past time to give the feds the benefit of the doubt here. This is an opportunity for Governor Pritzker to show leadership and commit publicly to refusing this harmful Trump-administration initiative, and instead finally fulfill the State’s promise to fully fund our public schools,” added Huu Nguyen.
Nine out of ten Illinois kids attend public schools, but the majority of Illinois’ public schools are still not fully funded, according to the State’s education funding formula. The deadline set by the General Assembly to fully fund the formula is June 2027.
The federal voucher program is structured as a so-called tax credit scholarship program, where taxpayers contribute funds to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) that distribute vouchers to private schools. Although the legislation mentions that public school students could receive scholarships for tutoring or other educational expenses, comments from US Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s America First Policy Institute call for vouchers to only be used to supplement, not supplant programs provided by public schools. If even 5% of Illinois students left public schools for private schools, public school budgets would be burdened by $1 billion in irreducible fixed costs—on top of the loss of any per-pupil funding, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute.
Illinois’ primary election is March 17th, and about 10% of Illinois voters will have a misleadingly worded advisory question on their ballot asking if Illinois should participate in the voucher program.
“It is especially important that the public and policymakers understand the truth about this program: it is funded by public tax dollars, not charitable private donations,” said Cassie Creswell, executive director of Illinois Families for Public Schools. “And, just like we saw with Illinois’ state voucher program, these public funds will primarily be used with no oversight or civil rights protections at religious institutions, funding discrimination—against students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, English-language learners and others—and hurting education equity.”
Illinois’s state voucher program (“Invest in Kids”), ran from 2018 to 2024 and diverted more than $315 million to private schools from the General Revenue Fund with weak state oversight. The Illinois General Assembly chose to allow the program to sunset, largely due to its lack of benefits for low-income students and students of color. Based on the Illinois Department of Revenue’s reports, only 1 in 4 voucher dollars in the program went to low-income students; about half of schools provided no vouchers to Black students and about 1 in 3 provided no vouchers to Latine students. According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s data on private schools, only about 15% of schools receiving vouchers served any special education students.
This broad coalition, representing families, educators, voters and advocates from across Illinois, is in agreement that it is time for our Governor to firmly refuse this toxic school privatization scheme for our State. Having seen vouchers before here in Illinois, we know they are simply bad education policy: hurting equity and funding discrimination without improving academic outcomes.
The coalition calls on all public school supporters to join our efforts by calling Governor Pritzker today to ask him to make a public commitment that Illinois will NOT participate in the federal voucher program because of the grave harm the program would bring to Illinois’ public schools.
About Illinois Families for Public Schools
Illinois Families for Public Schools (IL-FPS) is a statewide, grassroots, non-profit 501c4 advocacy group founded in 2016. IL-FPS is the voice of public school families in Springfield and across the state, advocating to defend and improve Illinois public schools. More at ilfps.org.
https://www.ilfps.org/coalition_urges_pritzker_say_no_to_federal_school_vouchers
