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Poll: Parents prefer private schools if given the choice

Posted December 10, 2007 10:00 pm

Dana Heupel

A poll released Tuesday found that most Illinoisans would send their children to private, parochial or charter schools if they had the choice, according to an education think tank.

Representatives of the Illinois Policy Institute and other school-choice advocates said the study shows that the time is right for lawmakers to increase tax credits for parents whose children don't attend public schools and to remove the cap on the number of charter schools - institutions often operated by nonprofit organizations - in the state.

"Four out of five parents would opt out of the public school system if they could," John Tillman, chairman and chief executive officer of the Springfield-based institute, said at a Statehouse news conference.

Only 1 percent of Illinois parents have the option to send their children to charter schools, said Collin Hitt, director of education policy for the institute, which promotes free-market solutions to public policy problems. In the poll, 23 percent of likely voters said they would send their children to charter schools if they had the choice.

By law, the number of charter schools statewide is capped at 60, and limits also are placed on individual regions of the state.

Increasing the Illinois Education Expense Tax Credit from $500 per family to $4,000 per student also would help more children attend private schools, Hitt said. In the poll, 39 percent of Illinoisans said they would send their children to private schools if they had the choice.

Tillman said the organization has not calculated the total cost of raising the tax credit to $4,000 per student.

Other findings in the poll include:

-- Fifty-six percent of Illinoisans favor allowing parents the option to use public funds to send their children to private schools.

-- Fifty-one percent support using publicly funded vouchers to pay for students' private educations.

-- Fifty-seven percent of Illinoisans rate the state's public school system as "fair" or "poor."

Paul DiPerna, who analyzed the poll, which was financed by the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, said those supporting more choices for students came from diverse economic, racial and geographical backgrounds.

The poll, conducted by Strategic Vision, surveyed 1,500 likely voters throughout the state. The margin of error was 2.5 percent.

Other organizations involved in the study included Agudath Israel of America, the Black Alliance for Educational Options, the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the Champion Foundation, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options and School Choice Illinois.

Dana Heupel can be reached at (217) 788-1518 or dana.heupel@sj-r.com.

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