By Sherry Larson
People’s Defender
Parents should have a choice of where they want to send their children to school. Choice – that sounds like a good idea, and if a parent wants their child to attend a private, parochial, public charter, public magnet, online, or homeschool, that is a matter of choice. But who should pay for it?
Public schools are free and available for all students to attend. They are operated by a school district and funded by taxpayers. The Ohio Constitution, Article IV, Section 2 regarding school funding states, “The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.”
According to education.ohio.gov, the EdChoice program in Ohio “provides students from designated public schools the opportunity to attend participating private schools. The program also provides low-income students who are entering kindergarten through 12th-grade scholarship opportunities.” When this program began, it was slated to help impoverished families in poor-performing districts.
But if some legislators get their way, “choice” in schools will take on a new meaning that can be detrimental to the public school system. In a letter to superintendents, the Vouchers Hurt Ohio Coalition states, “Every public school in Ohio, including yours, is losing funding to harmful private school vouchers. No district is immune, and it is going to get worse as extreme politicians in Columbus have stated they want universal vouchers – every student would be eligible – by July 1 of this year.”
The coalition claims vouchers are an existential threat to public schools and filed a lawsuit on January 4, 2022, against the EdChoice program. Judge Jaiza Page of Franklin County is assigned to the case. The Ohio Attorney General and other groups like the Institute for Justice filed a motion to dismiss, but on December 16, 2022, Page rejected the action, and the case will proceed. The coalition states, “We believe we are going to win because we have a strong case, and the Ohio Constitution is on our side.”
In a PowerPoint presentation, the coalition reports that lawmakers increased private school vouchers in the 2-year budget passed in 2021. If their plan to achieve universal vouchers is successful, every district child will be eligible as soon as July 1, 2023. The presentation discusses the placement of a new state bureaucracy in the state treasurer’s office that would take the accountability and oversight away from the Ohio Department of Education and the State Board of Education. Will the voucher program destroy public schools? Many Ohio school districts and constituents say, “Yes.”
Senate Bill 178, which failed to pass the House in December of 2022, included “an education overhaul bill that would strip most of the power from the state board of education and give it to the governor’s office. The bill would rename the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW). It would also create a director of the department who would serve as a cabinet member of the governor’s administration” (statehousenews.org). The transfer of the state board of education function to the governor’s office is now included in SB 1, currently in Senate Committee.
Richard Seas, Superintendent of Adams County Ohio Valley School District, testified in Columbus about three years ago regarding the expansion of EdChoice and how it impacts ACOVSD. Seas’ perspective is unique in that he attended private Catholic school in his youth – an expense paid for by his parents. He understands that his parents paid taxes and that money could have applied to his and his siblings’ school tuition. Seas attended public colleges, began his career in public schools, and later taught in a Catholic school for three years. So, he gets the discussion of school vouchers from all sides. Plus, as a parent of 11 children, he understands the expense.
Seas stated, “But being a public education and a school superintendent for over 20 years and looking at the vouchers, it’s still public tax dollars being spent privately.” Seas knows that the ACOVSD needs to answer for the dollars they receive. There are rules and regulations in the public system that must be followed. He said, “We accept all. We can’t discriminate in any way, shape, or form. That’s a concern to me when I think of vouchers, is there going to be a discrimination piece to this?”
Seas added, “I’m proud of our work in public education.” He understands that the State Board of Education is tied to the Ohio Constitution. He questioned, “What powers can or can’t be transferred to the governor’s office? What’s legal and what is not legal.” He noted that other states like Iowa and Arizona had passed their universal voucher programs.
A Vouchers Hurt Ohio document explains that vouchers are “funded by rerouting state education funding from a student’s resident school district to cover the voucher. Current private and homeschooled students are not included in the district enrollment totals. “This means that approximately $2 billion in new state funding would be required to fund vouchers for these students. If the state does not increase revenue to cover the costs of students already in private education, the reallocation of state aid to vouchers will leave school districts with significantly less revenue to fund the remaining public-school students.” What does that do to underfunded public school districts? The document continues, “Funding for public school districts would drop over $900 per pupil, from $4,175 to $3,261 per pupil in state aid in the first year.”
Ohio state proposed the fiscal year 2024 and 2025 executive budget, including funding for the education of Ohio’s 1.6 million students. Governor Mike DeWine proposed that legislature direct the funding to public and charter schools and develop the voucher program to help families pay for private school tuition. Under the new budget recommendations, various types of schools will compete for school dollars and receive more money in the next two years. According to the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA), the new proposed budget increases the income eligibility threshold from 250% to 400% of the federal poverty level for the income-based version of EdChoice. This amount equates to an annual income of $120,00 for a family of four and represents approximately 80% of Ohio families with children.
Assistant Superintendent of the Union Local School District in Belmont County, Ohio, Jayme Yonak, said, “They aren’t addressing the real issues by sending kids to charter schools. I’m all for choice, but they aren’t held to the same government standards as public schools.” Yonak believes that lawmakers need to visit public schools and obtain relevant data. “They need to be in the thick of things before making decisions.” Fixing the issues in public education won’t be solved by taking away funding for students to attend other schools. The notion that public schools are failing is unfair without considering what they deal with daily. It’s only possible to know the successful outcome of public education by investing in them and offering more resources.
The expansion of EdChoice is a crucial conversation for all of us. Allowing people to choose an alternative educational path for their children with state funding changes the narrative for public schools. Is the increased offering of EdChoice an attack on public education? Will it gut the free, public, and all-inclusive education system or provide a choice that proves to be constitutional? These are questions to ponder, discuss, and share with lawmakers as they consider EdChoice expansion and move forward.