Editorial: Gov. J.B. Pritzker says he will sign Invest in Kids bill. Get it done, Springfield.

Few governors are as politically shrewd as Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Look how carefully he is playing the Invest in Kids controversy.

To refresh your memory: Invest in Kids is the modest Illinois scholarship fund — passed in 2017 with bipartisan support and signed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner — that gives parents who could not otherwise afford to send their children to private and parochial schools help to do so. The program provides some $75 million in income tax credits to donating individuals (and businesses), who in return get a state tax credit of 75 cents on every dollar they give to a so-called scholarship granting organization.

Advocates for school choice love the program despite its small size ($75 million is chump change when it comes to state spending on education). Many moderate Democrats recognize its effectiveness for low-income families. More than 60% of the program’s scholarships to date have gone to nonwhite families.

The Chicago Teachers Union hates it, even though its president, Stacy Davis Gates, sends her own child to a parochial school, arguing she is doing the best she can for her kid. We don’t doubt that for a second, but the hypocrisy prompts critics to note that parents with lesser resources should be afforded the same choice as the union’s boss.

We’re longtime fans of Invest in Kids.

“When kids in long-neglected neighborhoods get access to a strong, well-rounded education,” we wrote in May, building on our previous support for the program in 2021, “those neighborhoods are better off, as is Chicago as a whole.”

At the time, it looked like Invest in Kids was toast.

“Shutting down Invest in Kids,” we wrote, “would force an unacceptable level of uncertainty on parents and their children, who would have their academic journeys upended and their futures suddenly jeopardized.”

Last week, though, Pritzker said he would sign a bill extending the program if lawmakers saw fit to do so.

“I will support it if it comes to my desk to extend the program in whatever form,” he said. Whether that’s a flip-flop or a continuation of Pritzker’s previous position is up for debate (Pritzker argues the latter; others point to his prior statements to the contrary.) What’s clear,though, is that this is a shift.

Is he giving himself some deniability when it comes to the angry CTU? Maybe.

“The legislators did it,” he can say. “Why are you looking at me?”

We have little doubt that Pritzker personally sees the efficacy of the modestly sized program. And we expect he well knows that most Illinoisans — indeed most Americans — support such sensible initiatives, something that may well come up in a possible future presidential campaign when it would be advisable to tack more to the political center.

Political calculations matter little to families who need and depend on this program. They don’t care about anyone’s presidential hopes, annoyed unions, or any of that. They just need this help to get their kids to, or merely remain at, the school that works best for them.

Springfield and its controlling Democrats should move to continue this worthy program during the veto session and get it to the governor’s desk for a now-guaranteed signature.

Have some guts and get behind an idea proven to work.

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