Piet van Lier of Policy Matters Ohio has some proposals to “fix” Ohio’s disastrous voucher program.
The voucher program–called EdChoice–was recently amended to make 2/3 of the districts in the state liable to pay for vouchers for private and religious schools, many (or most) of which are not as good as the public schools. In addition, students who never attended a public school can apply for a voucher, meaning that the program is a subsidy for students already in private and religious schools.
His first suggestion is that the state should create a separate fund to pay for vouchers, instead of taking money away from public schools.
His second is that only students already in public schools should be eligible for vouchers.
He suggests that vouchers should be limited only to low-income students.
And he proposes that voucher-receiving schools should be required to meet the same academic standards and regulations as public schools.
I personally don’t believe that there should be any vouchers. Low-income students do not benefit by going to religious schools. Affluent families should pay for private and religious schools if they want them.
But all of these are good proposals to limit the damage to the state’s public schools, which enroll 90% of students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How to Fix a Voucher Program:
Eliminate it.
Give the money back to the public schools where it belongs.
So very often the simplest solution is the best solution….
I have been tracking this and other proposals to fix the impending raid on public school budgets from our Ohio EdChoice voucher legislation. These vouchers are called “EdChoice Scholarships.”
The legislation on EdChoice vouchers works in tandem with the our idiotic state report cards, enabled and defended by the Ohio based Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and favoring private management of all schools and as soon as possible.
If you can stand the gritty details, you can see the absurd criteria for identifying our “failing schools” all now eligible for EdChoice vouchers. http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Other-Resources/Scholarships/EdChoice-Scholarship-Program/Criteria-for-EdChoice-Designated-Public-Schools-20-21-11072019.pdf.aspx?lang=en-US
Piet van Lier’s proposals, on behalf of Policy Matters Ohio, are a reasonable compromise to the current legislation, but I have little confidence that our legislature to act on these proposals.
I hope I am wrong.
I have also been looking at the immediate prospects for our 58 Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) with 33 now designated as failing and thus labeled “EdChoice schools.” The sad thing for Cincinnati is that the school board has been expanding local “choice” in schools–a German language school, several offering multi-linqual studies, several STEM schools, also Montessori, Paideia, an IT high school, and more. Charters are few–so far.
There are some obvious disconnects between the proposed solutions to this legislated fiasco and the intended distribution of vouchers. The EdChoice vouchers amount is $4650 for grades K–8 and $6000 for grades 9-12. A public school loses these sums of money for each student who exits to in a state-approved private school.
The state seems to assume that these transfers of money are straightforward. But the vouchers leave a huge gap in tuition for students. The Ohio Department of Education says the average high school tuition to a private school in Cincinnati is $15,285. The average tuition for a private elementary school is $6246. These two grade-level patterns for the use of vouchers (in either a 9-12 high school or a K-8 elementary school) have little bearing on the actual distribution of grade levels in public and private schools.
For example, CPS has eleven different patterns of grade-levels. Only one high school fits the state template of grades 9-12, JUST ONE. Many more of our schools have a grade 7-12 structure, one has a preschool to grade 12 structure. The legislated distribution of vouchers is out of whack with the grade levels in our schools. I have seen no state guidance on how to address this matter.
Moreover, the state-authorized private schools eligible to receive vouchers also have variable grade-level structures. Because students who qualify for a voucher must first be accepted in a state-approved private school, their choices are not as grand and unlimited as the marketers of vouchers assume. In theory, CPS voucher-eligible students can choose among 63 state approved private schools in Cincinnati (Hamilton County).
Eight of the approved private “high schools,” are for grades 9-12. All are Catholic schools and three are limited to girls, three to boys. Tuition in these schools ranges from $9150 to $14, 425. A ninth high school requires students to work for part of their tuition (among other special requirements).
Among the choices of state approved private “elementary” schools, CPS voucher-eligible students will also find choices constrained by the actual grade-levels in these schools, and their focus. Most are Catholic (32), “Christian (6), or a specific Christian denomination (3), or Jewish (3). Non-denominational options are few: Childcare, Pre-K and Kindergarten (3), Waldorf (2). Montessori (1). Eight of these choices are also for schools with grades K-12. That span of grades may influence which voucher students are accepted.
The local press treatment of the options for CPS students who are eligible for vouchers has focused on the potential reductions in funds at the district level.
The press has not been diligent in reporting information such as this:
Voucher-eligible students are chosen by private schools first, then the voucher goes to the private school.
The funds for EdChoice vouchers come from the CPS budget. Cutbacks in programs are likely and some schools may close.
Most voucher-approved private schools for CPS students are religious schools.
Voucher-approved private schools for CPS students may not match up with the grade-levels that students/parents need or desire, or can manage for transportation.
Students who enter a private school will lose federal protections for special education and privacy of personally identifiable information.
A website from the Ohio League of Women Voters offered some information about the EdChoice vouchers. The comments section were taken over by thugs who railed against teacher unions, the individual who posted the information, bad test scores, and “liberal” values. This thick blanket of complaints appeared to have been mustered by unidentified actors.
Some Ohio legislators are playing dumb about public funding for education. Here is an example the local press did not miss. This legislator thinks CPS will receive a budget boost from vouchers. He is famous for throwing around alt-facts. https://www.wlwt.com/article/expansion-of-ohios-edchoice-voucher-program-puts-states-complicated-school-funding-formula-in-spotlight/30474871
Laura,
You seldom if ever make mistakes, but now I must correct you.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has an outpost in Dayton, where the late Mr. Fordham lived, but it is based in D.C., where it’s president and most staff live and have lovely offices. Mr. Fordham never expressed any interest in school choice. He died long ago and left his fortune to his wife, who also had no interest in school choice. Her lawyer was Chrcker Finn’s father, who created the Foundation and later the Institute. The Finns decided to dedicate Mr. Fordham’s fortune to fund school choice. That fortune has since been increased by donations from rightwing foundations, as well as Gates’ money to promote Common Core.
LAura,
As an Ohioan, you might try to research Mr. Fordham to see where he went to school and what causes he supported in his lifetime.
Diane, I am aware of some of the history of the Thomas Fordham Institute in Ohio, primarily from the work of Richard P. Phelps cited below. The Ohio “outpost” of the Thomas Fordham Institute is of special interest for a number of reasons, not least the multi-year funding of operational expenses and specific projects by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Whatever the history, The Thomas B. Fordham Institute (Ohio) now clearly favors a system of charter school governance that bypasses elected school boards, supports vouchers for private school education, and backs the use of A-F Report Cards to rate public schools…including the use of a discredited and proprietary EVASS “value added” measure. These acts are consistent with my judgment that The Thomas B. Fordham Institute (Ohio) favors “independent” governance of schools, private management (with the perk of receiving public funds).
I have formed a gestalt about the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (Ohio) based largely on information on its website, the op eds in our local papers from persons employed at the Fordham Institute, the role of the Fordham in authorizing charter schools in Ohio and in shaping the weak (laughable) scheme for soliciting and evaluating authorizers of charter schools..
My gestalt has also been shaped by the Fordham’s influence over hires in the Ohio Department of Education and efforts to influence legislation, including the new voucher scheme that will cut public school budgets across the state, with more than half of Cincinnati public schools now booted into voucher mode.
On the political influence of the Fordham on the Ohio’s state policies and personnel, I have been informed by some of your own posts and by the detail in Richard P. Phelps’ article which includes specific references to the role of the Fordham in getting Ohio’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Paolo DeMaria, hired. DeMaria had previously worked for the Ohio Department of Education as Associate Superintendent of the Center for School Options and Finance and before that he was Principal Consultant with Education First Consulting.
In other words, the leadership in our Department of Public Instruction is all in for the same agenda as that of the current Thomas B. Fordham Institute (Ohio).
Phelps’ article is here with notes that clearly reveal how heirs to the Fordham wealth have violated a stipulation that they were not to engage in work on legislation.
Click to access v14n6.pdf
I was on the TBF board in its first decade. I left for several reasons: 1) I did not think the Foundation (as it was then, not an institute) should be a charter authorizer in Ohio; I was outvoted 2) I objected to accepting Gates’ money, preferring that TBF remain independent (it then had $40 million, which seemed sufficient to me for a “think tank”); I was outvoted 3) after TBF became an authorizer of charter schools, almost all of its charters (maybe all) failed, closed, were subject to criminal actions by those in charge, and TBF cheerfully replaced them, rather than rethinking what all this failure meant. I was so out of synch with the increasingly rightwing nature of TBF (it did not support vouchers during my tenure), that I didn’t belong there. TBF keeps a picture of me on its website as a “trustee emeritus.” It is not clear whether this is more embarrassing to them or to me.
The large, shiny letters identifying the Fordham Institute on a building in downtown Dayton may be advantageous in creating the credibility of a bricks and mortar location in the state, while out-of state, rich people pay the organization’s freight to serve the oligarchy? It probably makes for good photo ops when politicians or Fordham thinks it benefits them.
I’m curious if the letters are new or have just been shined. I don’t recall seeing them before.
The headquarters of TBF is D.C.
Headquarters are in D.C. because libertarian oligarchs believe in local control (sarcasm). Ohio has a grandfathered outpost.
TBF did not exist in Ohio until after creation of the DC headquarters. The Dayton outpost is for show. The money and decisions are in DC
The Fordham has two officies in Ohio. The Columbus office is knee deep in Ohio policy formation. One is in charge of policy initiatives. One who is in charge of research has never taught, but also churns out misleading opeds for distribution to Ohio newspapers, most recently in defence of the A-F Report cards and EdChoice Vouchers.
Staff in the Dayton office solicit charter authorizers, hand-hold them through the application process, and make sure that the state “accountability” requirements for charters are surrounded with loopholes. The Dayton office also monitors the performance of the 11 Fordham-sponsored charter schools in Ohio.
Eight Fordham employees work in these offices.
8 peopleI I wouldn’t want influencing the education of children due to the organization’s opposition to democratic process and to the common good and, because employee paychecks are written by out-of-state billionaires. I especially wouldn’t want the ones who may be misleading media about research e.g. Dr. Figlio’s voucher paper.
BTW – Do Fordham schools have musical band programs? How many short-term TFA’s are teaching in Fordham schools? What democratic process of decision making is available for parents at Fordham schools? Can the public view Fordham schools’ record of expenses?
How do the employee pay and benefit packages at Fordham schools compare to public schools? How much time do Fordham personnel
spend influencing Ohio government employees and legislators about public education policy? Are Fordham employees registered lobbyists?