Category: Education

Will Illinois Lose the Invest In Kids Scholarship Tax Credit Program?

Written by Calvin Lindstrom

Illinois enacted the Invest In Kids Scholarship Tax Credit Program in 2017. This program offers a 75 percent income tax credit to individuals and businesses that contribute to qualified Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). The SGOs then provide scholarships for students whose families meet the income requirements to attend qualified, non-public schools in Illinois.

It is a carefully regulated process, but it works.

The total amount of tax credit that could be granted per year was $75 million dollars.… Continue Reading

SPOTLIGHT: A Conversation with Larry Elder

In this special episode of Illinois Family Spotlight, Monte Larrick converses with 2024 Presidential Candidate Larry Elder at the 2023 Black Conservative Summit. Larry Elder is a commentator, film-maker, Epoch Times contributor, and is the executive producer of Uncle Tom and Uncle Tom: An American Odyssey.

Larry Elder, in this interview, capitalizes on the importance of black fathers being present in the home, as this is the greatest threat that is facing black America.… Continue Reading

SPOTLIGHT: Protecting Pregnancy Centers

Written by Alyssa Sonnenburg

In this special episode of Spotlight, Illinois Family features remarks from Ann O’Connor, Vice President of legal affairs for the National Institute for Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA). This lecture, presented at Speakout Illinois 2023, highlights legislation that is targeting pregnancy care centers for the sole purpose of shutting them down. She states the core of what NIFLA is about in her lecture when she says,

While Dobbs did change abortion not to be the law of our land federally, it didn’t change hearts and that’s our job.

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SPOTLIGHT: Creation Science & The Christian II

Written by Alyssa Sonnenburg

In this Spotlight episode, David E. Smith and Self Evident‘s Jenna Smith continue the conversation with Eric Hovind, President and Founder of Creation Today, and Helmut Welke, President of Quad City Creation Science Association. This conversation includes discussion on faux fossils, the importance of training your children to ask the right questions, and why a young earth perspective is crucial to a Biblical worldview. Eric Hovind capitalizes on the importance of sharing one’s faith in order to strengthen one’s faith.… Continue Reading

SPOTLIGHT: Creation Science and The Christian

Written by Alyssa Sonnenburg

Self Evident’s Jenna Smith co-hosts this week’s episode of Spotlight with David Smith to converse with two special guests about the importance of Scripture and the necessity of knowing the Creator.

One of these special guests is Eric Hovind, the President and Founder of Creation Today, an organization based in Pensacola, Florida. Eric has a deep passion to reach people with the life-changing message of the Gospel and this has driven him to speak in five foreign countries and all fifty states.… Continue Reading

Touting the Leftist Crusaders Against ‘Book Bans’

Written by Tim Graham

The Left is in an uproar. Parents opposed to their indoctrinating ways are forming a resistance movement. One uproar is over books — assigned books in the classroom and available books in the school library. Disagree with the content of the books? You’re for “book bans.”

Technically, this is accurate inside the school, but the leftist press makes it sound like you’re banning books entirely from public view. They get to pose as the defenders of books and “book learning” and as compassionate defenders of the book-reading needs of the “marginalized.”… Continue Reading

Joe Biden’s Twisted View Of Sin

Written by Gabriel Syme 

In a recent interview on “The Daily Show” President Joe Biden said that the legislature in Florida was both “cruel” and “close to sinful” for not allowing people to indoctrinate and groom young children in sexual perversion. The proposed Senate Bill 254 in Florida protects children from gender mutilation, and prohibits the use of public funds for such procedures. The President is adamantly against this Bill.

Biden said, “It’s not like a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I wanted to become a man or want to become a woman or I want to change.’… Continue Reading

Trump & DeSantis Target “Woke” Education on Road to White House

Written by Alex Newman

Former President Donald J. Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are both focusing heavily on education policy in the run-up to the 2024 election, suggesting the issue will take center stage over the next two years. DeSantis is already on the warpath in Florida, as Trump vows to wrest control of schools from “radical left maniacs” and “pink-haired communists” in his second term.

Among other tactics, both men are vowing to ramp up conservative defenses in the ongoing culture war within schools as public education becomes increasingly radicalized — and unpopular with parents desperate to stop the sexualization and indoctrination of their children at taxpayer expense.… Continue Reading

Will They Finally Pull Plug on Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute?

Written by Robert Knight

Years after the founder of Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute was exposed as a fraud and sexual predator, some Hoosier State legislators are moving to defund the sex think tank.

On Wednesday, the Republican-dominated House voted 53-34 for an amendment to the state budget bill barring money for the institute. All Democrats voted against it, naturally, joined by seven kinky Republicans.

HB 1001 got final approval 66-29 on Thursday and was sent over to the Senate.… Continue Reading

Universal Educational Vouchers Is Not a Winning Policy

Written by Robert Bortins

Don’t believe the press releases from universal school voucher enthusiasts: it wasn’t a winning message in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Arizona governorships and Senate seats.

These are all swing states the GOP needs to win to take back the presidency and states where a GOP senator or two could protect the country from radical left-wing policies. But vouchers didn’t move the needle in any of them.

The GOP should abandon taxpayer-funded school choice and focus on empowering parents rather than expanding the state. … Continue Reading