Opinion | J.B. Pritzker vs. Catholic Schools

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democrats in the Legislature killed the Invest in Kids scholarship program last year, blocking money for more than 9,000 low-income students to escape failing public schools. Now comes the second wave of destruction as the schools that welcomed the scholarship students are beginning to close.

On Thursday two Catholic schools in Chicago’s western suburbs announced they are shutting down. St. Frances of Rome School in Cicero and St. Odilo School in Berwyn said that the 164 Invest in Kids scholarship students between them represented more than half of the schools’ enrollment. Without them, the schools no longer have enough students to keep their doors open.

In a statement on Thursday, the Archdiocese of Chicago said Catholic schools in the Windy City are facing a “financial cliff” after the loss of Invest in Kids. “We are doing all that we can to keep our schools open,” Catholic schools superintendent Greg Richmond said, but “these may not be the last closures in our archdiocese.”

On Friday Notre Dame Academy in Belleville announced that it’s closing, despite “devoted labor” aimed at boosting enrollment and raising funds. The school cited the financial hardships of aging buildings and the fact that the state discontinued Invest in Kids “that benefitted our school, especially those with financial need.”

Schools like these are often the best chance for low-income families to escape rotten union schools. At Berwyn North, the neighborhood where St. Odilo school is located, 30.8% of students in third through eighth grade are proficient in reading and 18.5% in math. In the Cicero school district, 18.1% of third through eighth graders are proficient in reading and 9.8% in math. Parents will now have to send children back to these failure factories. (This data comes from the Illinois Assessment of Readiness via the Illinois Policy Institute.)

Private-school families often unite to raise money through donations, and many are now fighting to save the education the state has undermined. When St. Bede Catholic School in Ingleside said it needed to raise $400,000 to keep its doors open, students began a fundraising effort. Their commitment is admirable, but the Hail Mary won’t fix the chronic funding gap created by the disappearance of state scholarship students. They’ll need to find another $400,000 next year.

The point to understand is that this is exactly what the Chicago Teachers Union and their Democratic front men intended in killing the Invest in Kids program. They want private schools to fail so that parents have no choice other than sending their children to union-run schools. It’s a moral and political disgrace.