The only problem I see with this is that the kids can leave, but the schools don't seem to be given an incentive to improve.


"Liberate the Kids"

The Illinois House Executive Committee will hear a bill on Thursday that could give 22,000 Chicago elementary school students — those stuck in the weakest 10 percent of the city's public schools — an escape hatch.

The bill, which passed the Senate 33-20 in March, would offer state-funded tuition vouchers to kids who are enrolled at 49 elementary schools in Chicago. The kids could use the vouchers at any private or parochial school that admits them.

The Senate vote was instructive. Almost all Republicans voted for the bill. A majority of Democrats voted against it.

But look more deeply into that vote. Many Democrats from relatively affluent areas opposed the measure. But a majority of the African-American and Latino senators — those whose constituents' kids would directly benefit — voted yes. Good for those senators. They put their children first.

This has the makings of a genuinely bipartisan effort. On today's commentary page, Democratic State Sen. James Meeks and Republican Andy McKenna Jr. explain why it has broad appeal.

Here's why we think it does. It would give students — and their parents — better options. It would save the state money because the voucher would cost less than the state spends to educate a child in public schools.

And there's evidence that vouchers improve public schools. A 2009 report by The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice examined 17 studies on the impact of voucher programs. Sixteen studies found that vouchers improved student achievement in public schools; one study found they had no positive or negative impact.

In other words, competition works. These vouchers would be a win-win-win for students, taxpayers and public education.

So you'd think lawmakers would be expressing full-throated support for the bill. But House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego and Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, who chairs the executive committee, have been pretty quiet. It would be a tremendous help if they gave this bill a vocal boost before the hearing. It is going to take another bipartisan effort to get this through the House, because it does shake the education status quo.

There are reasons for all lawmakers to back this bill:

• Chicago lawmakers should support a bill that gives Chicago kids in failing schools a shot at a good education.

• Suburban and downstate lawmakers should support a bill that saves the state money — as much as $44 million over five years if roughly half of the students eligible for vouchers request them. (That number assumes the average voucher would be worth $4,000 per school year.) Over 12 years, the savings would total $242 million, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. How so? Private school tuition is less than what the state spends on Chicago Public Schools students.

What if student performance doesn't improve in private schools? Simple: Parents will vote with their feet. They'll re-enroll their kids at neighborhood public schools. "At some point," Meeks says, "we have to trust parents with their own children, and trust parents that they're not going to make a bad choice concerning their child. If they want their child out (of a failing public school), they should have that option."

Meeks is right. There's little risk, and much reward, in liberating kids from the city's worst schools so they can go find the best school for them.

Members of the Illinois House: Liberate them.