Giving Compass' Take:

• The Invest in Kids Act allows donors in Illinois to fund private school scholarships in return for tax credits. Massive demand for the scholarships is driving advocacy groups to push donors to rise to the occasion.

• Is this law an effective way to improve education outcomes for Illinois? What are the consequences of this law for public schools? 

• Learn more about the Invest in Kids Act.

After a rocky rollout this winter, Illinois’s tax credit scholarship program is up and running, with $40 million pledged statewide in just a few months by private donors who will subsidize tuition — in exchange for a generous state tax credit — for thousands of low-income students at private schools starting this fall.

When applications opened up in early 2018, demand from families immediately outpaced dollars pledged. An estimated 62,000 scholarship applications have come in from around the state, according to Myles Mendoza, executive director of Empower Illinois, the largest and perhaps most powerful of the state’s nine Scholarship Granting Organizations, which oversee the program.

Empower Illinois conducted extensive outreach to its community partners ahead of application day, resulting in tens of thousands of parents throughout the state — some who’d taken the day off work — overloading the website as they tried to submit applications at noon on January 31. The site crashed, causing headaches and delays for about 24,000 applicants.

Illinois became the 22nd state to enact tax credit scholarships when it passed the Invest in Kids Act last summer as part of a controversial education funding reform bill.

The Invest in Kids program is supported by individual and corporate donors who may contribute up to $1.3 million annually to the Scholarship Granting Organizations set up by the state.

Most applicants are families with children already attending private school, many of whom could not continue to cover tuition costs without a scholarship, Mendoza said.

Read the full article about meeting demand for private school tuition scholarships by Mareesa Nicosia at The 74.