Peter Greene believes that Ohio is trying to be like Florida, hoping to expand vouchers to every student as if every public school in Ohio is rotten. Once the voucher money is approved, the state doesn’t care about the quality of education. Ohio already has a low-performing charter industry, one of the worst in the nation, why not give vouchers to attend religious schools that use the Bible as their science textbook? I wish some entity in Ohio would place a referendum on the ballot and ask voters if they want to defund their public schools in order to expand public funding of vouchers and charters.
He writes:
You will recall that Ohio school districts are facing an explosion in costs as they enter the next phase of the privatization program. Phase One is familiar to most of us–you start out with vouchers and charters just for the poor families who have to “escape failing public schools.” Phase Two is the part where you expand the program so that it covers everybody.
Well, Ohio screwed up its Phase Two. Basically, they expanded the parameters of their privatization so quickly that lots of people noticed. The number of eligible school districts skyrocketed, and that brought attention to a crazy little quirk in their system, as noted by this report from a Cleveland tv station:
We analyzed data from the eight Northeast Ohio school districts that paid more than $1 million in EdChoice vouchers to area private schools during the 2019-2020 school year as part of the program.
Those districts include Akron, Canton, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Euclid, Garfield Heights, Lorain, Maple Heights, and Parma City Schools.
Out of the 6,319 students who received EdChoice vouchers, we found 4,013, or 63.5%, were never enrolled in the district left footing the bill for their vouchers.
Yep. That means that at the moment this kicks in, the district loses a buttload of money, while its costs are reduced by $0.00. This means that either the local school district cuts programs and services, or it raises taxes to replace the lost revenue, effectively calling on the taxpayers to help fund private school tuition for some students. I wonder how many legislators who helped engineer this are also opposed to plans from Democratic candidates to provide free college tuition at taxpayer expense?
The legislature has been running around frantically trying to– well, not head this off so much as slow it down just enough to reduce the number of angry phone calls their staff has to take. Nobody seems to be saying “This is a mistake” so much as they’e saying “Doing this so fast that people really notice is a mistake.” Someone cranked the heat on the frogs too fast. Meanwhile, this weekend was their last chance to get this fixed before next year’s voucher enrollment opens, and they have decided to punt because everyone is getting cranky.
Is this at least going to help some poor folks? Well, the proposal is to up the cap to 300% of poverty level. That’s $78,600 for a family of four. So there’s that.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would ask ed reformers this- since ed reform works exclusively on behalf of charter students and private school students, should public school students also get to have advocates? Why or why not?
How is it fair to public school students to have the Trump Administration, the DeWine Administration and a little more than half the state legislature advocating on behalf of private school and charter students, but not public school students?
I don’t object to the ed reform echo chamber promoting the interests of their schools and students. Why do they object to public school advocates doing the same? Public school students don’t deserve adult advocates?
The one and only reason the huge voucher expansion got any analysis at all was because public school supporters in Ohio objected.
Ed reformers in the statehouse and their lobbyists knew it would harm public school students and schools- they simply didn’t care.
Public school students were once again the designated collateral damage of ed reform ideological efforts. They were more than willing to throw 90% of students in the state under the bus in order to reach their ideological goals.
This is why public school advocates are essential. No one works on behalf of our kids in this horsetrading, and public school students lose every single time.
Ed reform works exclusively on behalf of private and charter school students. Public school students should also have advocates. It’s only fair.
And if ed reformers are truly “students first” they shouldn’t object to public school advocates working on behalf of public school students. Our students exist- despite their complete omission in the ed reform echo chamber, where they’re only mentioned when someone is selling a test or ed tech junk- and in fact public school students comprise the vast majority of “students”.
I don’t object to the ed reform “movement” working exclusively on behalf of private and charter school students. They shouldn’t object to our students having dedicated, passionate advocates either.
I read the Trump Administration is planning to promote their huge federal voucher program in the SOTU.
Advocates for students in public schools should be permitted to tv time to speak on behalf of our schools and students, who are excluded from ed reform advocacy efforts.
Only seems fair that advocates for the 90% of students in the unfashionable public schools are permitted to speak at publicly funded events. They shouldn’t be omitted again because ed reformers have an ideological objection to public schools. That isn’t fair to them.
On the Fourth of July, this past summer, I found myself in Marysville, Ohio, where people were gathered to watch explosions in the sky (“Hey, it goes BOOM. Heh heh.”) that would then rain back down as toxic chemicals to settle over the landscape and waterways. An annual event. There were lots of vendors there, selling “Deep Fried Butter” and Lite Beer and lots of roly poly kids full of Deep Fried Butter and toxic chemicals from fireworks, I suppose. And there were booths selling pictures of Jesus and of AK-47s and, in one memorable instance, a picture of Jesus holding an AK-47. I snapped a picture of that one to send to friends for its anthropological interest.
I thought, “Hmmm. This state is trying to out-Florida Florida.”
Great observations, commentary and humor! Somebody, please save us from this devolution and kakistocracy. Vote like your life depends on it because it does.
It’s a kakistrophe!
How do you deep fry butter?
Batter frozen sticks of butter and fry (put popsicle stick in butter before freezing). Don’t keep in fryer too long.
That sounds disgusting!
LOL. You dip a stick of butter in tempura-style batter and plunge it into a vat of VERY HOT oil for just a moment or two.
Thanks, GregB. I left out the frozen part. I can see that you, too, understand the finer things in life!
Ohio is like Betsy DeVos as US Sec’y of Ed: doing the nation a favor by blatantly exposing the privatization agenda. Ohio does Betsy one better, rushing a program into place that instantly reveals to taxpayers the sky-high cost of “school choice.”