Steven Dyer writes here of a seeming paradox:
Enrollment in Ohio’s private schools has dropped by 14% since 2008 but its funding has increased by 135% over the same period.
No paradox but a demonstration of the power of the lobbyists for private schools, who have drained money away from the state’s public schools.
He begins:
If you ever wondered what power looks like, I give you Ohio’s private school lobby. Why do I say that?
Because on what other planet, in what other universe, in what other industry would increasing investment by 135 percent over 11 years in a service that lost 14 percent of their customers over the same time be tolerated?
Because that’s exactly what’s happened here in Ohio with your money.
Here’s the data: In October 2008, the Ohio Department of Education counted about 171,319 students in Ohio’s non-public schools. Meanwhile, in October 2019, ODE reported 146,054.
That’s a 14.7 percent enrollment drop.
Meanwhile, in the 2008-2009 school year, Ohio taxpayers sent $291,530,743 to private schools through busing, administrative cost reimbursements, auxiliary services and vouchers (SEE note below on what these are). This year, that number will balloon to $685,853,844.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ohio didn’t get public school funding done, they didn’t get anything done on public school facilities or state testing, but they got private school vouchers done!
Public school students and families are the dead-last priority. First they serve the voucher lobby, then they serve the charter lobby, and if there’s any time left at the end of the year they’ll maybe do some work on behalf of the 90% of students in the state who attend public schools.
They’ll now devote all of next year to administering the vouchers, expanding the vouchers and promoting the vouchers. It just never ends. They never get any work done for students in public schools. They contribute nothing of value to our schools and students.
Fordham is a DC charter/voucher lobbying group. They have a hugely outsized influence in education policy in this state- our lawmakers take marching orders from them.
Here’s their exciting agenda for the 90% of students in this state who DON”T attend the charter and private schools ed reformers prefer:
The report includes the following recommendations for 2020–2021:
Administer state exams and report all assessment data, but withhold all school ratings
Repeal the state’s academic distress commission law
Eliminate automatic closure for charter schools
Review and evaluate Ohio’s existing school improvement efforts
Starting in 2021–2022, the recommendations include:
Implement a revamped report card and issue school ratings
Pare back eligibility for performance-based EdChoice vouchers
Expand eligibility for income-based EdChoice vouchers
Require, subject to capacity, district participation in open enrollment
Remove geographic restrictions on charter schools
Expand the number of districts eligible for regulatory exemptions
Provide bonus funding to both high achieving and improving schools
Expand the quality charter school incentive fund
Public school parents and families- read that and try to find something positive and beneficial for public school students in this state.
All they offer your kids is testing. That’s it. This grim, joyless ed reform agenda is all public school students get.
It’s really time that state lawmakers started putting some work into the schools 90% of kids attend. Twenty years of neglecting 90% of kids because they attend the unfashionable public schools is enough.
I know it sounds crazy but since 90% of kids in this state attend public schools, perhaps we could find and hire a couple of state employees who support public schools and intend to do some actual work on their behalf?
At they end of the year they should be able to show us what they accomplished to support or improve public schools and “more/new gimmicky testing schemes” isn’t a sufficient answer.
Opening more and more charters and pouring more and more public funding into private schools is not what they sold the public when they captured our state legislature. They were supposed to IMPROVE public schools, not work as hard as they can to eradicate and weaken them. Have they improved our public schools? No? Then replace them. They didn’t do the job they told us they would do.