Geographic Disproportionality in the First Year of Illinois's Tax Credit Scholarship Program

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Geography and Local Context in Schools of Choice

Abstract

The geographic segmentation of Illinois’s tax credit scholarship program is unlike any seen in any other statewide private school choice program. This study examines the first year of participation in Illinois’s tax credit scholarship program, during the 2018–19 academic year, and finds through geospatial analysis a geographic disproportionality in the allocation of credits compared to the distribution of potentially-eligible students and families. The study uses first-year participation data from the Illinois Department of Revenue, school information from the Illinois State Board of Education, demographic data from American Community Survey 2013–2017 estimates, drive-time data from HERE Traffic Analytics via Maptitude, and locale boundaries from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program.

Authors

• Andrew D Catt, EdChoice

• Michael Shaw, EdChoice