Bill Phillis is a retired state official in Ohio. As founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy, he follows the money. And he finds that nearly $15 billion has been diverted from public schools to charters and vouchers.
Educational opportunities lost in public school districts due to the state’s confiscation of $14,673,524,789 for the charter and voucher whims
Traditional public school students have been denied massive educational opportunities by the state’s confiscation of $14.7 billion from school districts. Much of the $14.7 billion has been wasted; hence, all students are being shortchanged.
The state’s constitutional responsibility is to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools. Instead of fixing the system as directed by the Ohio Supreme Court, the state has frittered away $14.7 billion of school district funds.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’d really like to find out how much influence the Trump Administration had on Ohio’s huge voucher expansion. There’s reporting in other states that DeVos lobbied for vouchers at the state level and it’s really odd that Ohio lawmakers did a huge voucher funding bill but no effort was expended on public school funding.
We need more transparency on ed reform lobbying. The public needs to know the extent of the capture and what is NOT getting accomplished on public schools due to lobbying for ed reform priorities on vouchers and charters.
How did it happen that my state legislature has the schools that 90% of students in the state attend as the dead-last priority? Who works on behalf of the public school students in this state?
We know the Trump Administration does nothing for public school students at the federal level, but how much influence are they exerting on Republicans in state legislatures at the state level?
“State lawmakers have talked to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, an advocate of school choice, as they’ve been negotiating how to change Ohio’s private school voucher program, according to sources with information on the matter.
People who favor private school scholarships in Ohio first reached out to DeVos, asking for her help. DeVos made the first call to lawmakers, and offered counsel that the Education Choice program shouldn’t be dismantled, according to one source.”
Is my state education policy now directed by Donald Trump? STATE Republicans are taking orders from Donald Trump now too, in addition to all the national Republicans?
Is this why we elected these state representatives? So they, too, can be subservient to Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s employees? No national Republican will stand up to Trump. Now the state-level Republicans won’t either, even if following orders harms their local public schools?
People in this state deserve an explanation on why Columbus had abandoned public schools. Because Donald Trump is anti-public school Ohio has to be anti-public schools too? Spineless and subservient to the President.
https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/01/us-secretary-of-education-betsy-devos-talking-to-ohio-lawmakers-as-they-negotiate-voucher-legislation.html
The ed reform lobby who own my state’s lawmakers can’t be bothered to contribute anything worthwhile or positive to the 90% of students in the state who attend the unfashionable “government schools”.
They provide zero benefit to any public school student. We get session after session of legislation focused on expanding charters and vouchers, and no one lifts a finger on behalf of the public school students in the state.
We’re paying thousands of ed reformers in Columbus who are state employees and none of the serve children in public schools, because they are ideologically committed to privatizing schools.
They should all be replaced. They don’t do the jobs the public pays them to do. We can and should find state employees who intend to work on behalf of public school families, instead of promoting their personal ideological agenda on our dime.
They have accomplished nothing for 90% of students in this state this year. They spent all of last year expanding charters and they will now spend all of this year expanding vouchers.
We can do better than this. We can hire better people.
Ohio’s education policies are the result of Republicans who dominate the legislature and are determined to privatize education, with vouchers and charters a symptom of that along with report cards designed to put schools and districts into state takeover plans. These initiatives predated Trump, but have accelerated since then especially the EdChoice voucher scheme. Bill Phillis is more knowledgable than anyone about the political environment taking down our public schools and he is an expert at following the money.
This $14.6 billion would pay all OH teachers for 3 full years. What did they spend this money on?!
Does anyone know how to find out who funds Citizens for Community Values, the Ohio group advocating so loudly for EdChoice?