Your Doubting Thomas

Senate Bill 2494, the Illinois School Choice Act, offers vouchers to families with children enrolled in Chicago’s worst performing elementary schools, defined as the bottom 10 percent, so they can take their children out of these schools and send them to a nearby private school. The amount of each voucher is the lesser of the state’s “foundation level” funding (currently, $6,119) or yearly tuition at the private school. (The average private elementary school tuition in Chicago is less than $4,500).