What is the state of Ohio paying for charters and vouchers? From state data and evaluations, we know that neither sector performs as well as the state’s public schools. The legislature likes to fund failure.
Bill Phillis, who retired as deputy state superintendent and is expert about school finance, has the answer:
Current Cost of School Choice The cost of school choice borne by the state and school districts is enormous. Public school leaders and advocates should be alarmed. Ohio has been private school-friendly beginning a half century ago. In HB 166, the state provides private schools with $139,995,470 for administrative cost reimbursement and $309,878,268 for auxiliary services, for a total of $449,873,738. One half billion! Additional direct state subsidies for charter schools and vouchers in HB 166 for FY 21 and FY 22 include: Charter facilities $40,000,000 Quality charter schools $60,000,000 Public charter schools $14,000,000 EdChoice expansion $178,240,758 Choice programs $9,780,309 Total $302,021,067 Hence, the direct state appropriations for private schools, charters and vouchers in FY 21 and FY 22 total $751,894,805. If the deductions from school districts in FY 22 are equal to the deductions in FY 21 for vouchers and charters, the total will be $2,352,881,306. Therefore, the grand total of tax dollars going to private schools and charters in FY 21 and FY 22 is $3,104,776,111. Charter school deductions from school districts started with $10,784,924 in FY 99 and escalated each year to $929,884,915 in FY 15. Since FY 15, the total charter deduction has reduced slowly to $827,136,047 in the current school year. Vouchers started in 2008 with $42,355,792 in deductions and have escalated to $349,304,605 in the current year. HB 166 is set to expand EdChoice vouchers exponentially. The legislature gave a one-year “freeze” in the expansion but the choice community will no doubt prevail in the expansion. The EdChoice litigation effort is designed to outlaw the EdChoice voucher scheme. |
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 | ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org |
Between the Opiod crisis and School Choice, Ohioans are in a “bad” place. Both addle one’s mind.
The Hopioid Crisis
When Hope becomes
The way of choice
The funeral drum’s
The final voice
The action is
The means to end
And hoping biz
Is not your friend
“Hopiod Crisis” … good one.
“Hope and Chains”
Leaders change
But core remains
To rearrange
The Hope and Chains
Republicans in Ohio’s legislature are hell-bent on defunding public schools.
William L. Phillis and the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding are trying hard to show how much money has been raided from public schools to pay for charters, vouchers, and our misleading “EdChoice” program.
Ed Choice means that schools choose their students and the state tells citizens which schools are EdChoice schools. EdChoice is mislabelled. In Cincinnati, for example, the Ed Choice option for high school is limited to Catholic Schools.
There are pockets like this all over the state where EdChoice is really a subsidy for religious schools.
It is so sad that Ohio’s “journalists” (are there any remaining?), press, parents, teachers, school board members, and elected officials aren’t aware of Bill’s stellar, important service to the state and nation. Or that those who are aware ignore it.
Bill Phillis should be in the speed dial of every journalist in Ohio.
“Choice for me, not for thee”
The cost of choice
Is not for those
Who use their voice
To self impose
Privatization starts with a trickle, and due to extreme politicking, ends in a flood of public money. Nobody bothers to ask if the public is getting its money’s worth? Charter schools continue to fail on delivering on their promises of a superior education. The price paid by the under funded public schools is too dear for what is returned to the community. Good community schools enhance the value of the community.. Charter schools drain public funds and send the profit to company headquarters generally outside the community. Privatization is a scheme to transfer money out of communities and into private pockets. Privatization enables the loss of community funds to corporate carpetbaggers.
Covid has magnified our disinvestment in public schools. Teachers are using crowd funding to raise money for ventilation in their schools. Public schools in many communities would not be starving and in disrepair if so much public money were not wasted on inefficient and unneeded privatization.
From Trick to Flood
Privatization
Starts with a trickle
Just a sensation
Not yet a pickle
Then it becomes
A Noah’s Flood
Rainbeat that drums
On chest deep mud
Ohio has neglected public schools under ed reformers for 20 years now. It’s ludicrous. 90% of schools and students in the state are completely ignored while lawmakers rush to grant every demand of ed reformers. They simply don’t serve public school students in this state- they offer them nothing positive and there’s no real effort or investment on their behalf. We conduct endless expensive and gimmicky experiments ed reformers cook up and no one does the practical work of actually attempting to improve public schools.
Our public school students and families are poorly served by the ed reform echo chamber, but they enjoy such complete political dominance no one is even permitted to discuss trying another approach. Year after year after year- 90% of the effort and investment goes to pursuing ed reformers ideological wish list rather than to students in public schools. Year after year after year the quality of the public schools declines due to this neglect, but no one dares to even question the status quo.
All the gimmicks and testing also line the pockets of for profit interests.
I think the worst part about the ed reform echo chamber in Ohio is ed reformers don’t just dominate the charter and voucher cheerleading squad, they ALSO set policy for the public schools they don’t support.
Public school families somehow ended up with a group of lobbyists and “experts” who oppose public schools setting all policy FOR public schools.
Of course our students and schools get the short end of the stick- the people running state policy in Columbus are working to get rid of our schools completely.
Go look at any of the reform sites right now and try to find a positive program, policy or investment in any public school, anywhere. They simply don’t serve our students.
Can someone explain to me why a DC think tank and lobbying group that exists to promote charters and vouchers runs public school policy in my state?
Why does all our public education policy come out of the Right wing Fordham Institute, and why were they given a monopoly on education policy in this state?
Could public school students and families possibly get someone in state government who actually supports and expends some effort on PUBLIC schools, or is that too much to ask? It’s 90% of students and families. Maybe someone could perform some actual work on their behalf.
In Chicago, I noticed charter schools are affiliated with Chicago Public Schools. I wonder how that happened.☹️🤔😮
It really would help and speed up the conversations if you would read The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, Reign of Error: The Hoax of Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Schools, and Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools. Without having read those books, you really can’t understand why we’re here.
I’m just asking why Chicago Public Schools are affiliated with charters. There are many wonderful experts, such as yourself, which is why I ask. 🤓🔔
Read those books, the answers to that and many, many, many more questions are in there. They are prerequisites (or at least should be) for admission here.