More than 100 school districts in Ohio have joined a lawsuit against the state of Ohio opposing vouchers.
Bill Phillis, former deputy superintendent of the Ohio Department of Education, now leads a pro-public school advocacy group called the Ohio Coalition of Equity and Adequacy. He and a new group called “Vouchers Hurt Ohio” have organized the campaign to have the voucher program declared unconstitutional. This is their website.
Bill Phillis posted this description of the lawsuit when it was filed in court in Ohio in early January:
Vouchers Hurt Ohio and Ohio E&A Coalition
File Lawsuit Against Private School Voucher Program
COLUMBUS – A coalition of public school districts filed a lawsuit today in Franklin County Common Pleas court challenging the constitutionality of the rapidly growing private school voucher program that is siphoning away hundreds of millions of dollars from public school students, teachers, classrooms and communities.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice and current Columbus City Schools board member Eric Brown said the lawsuit asks the judicial system a simple, but critical question:
“Where does the Ohio General Assembly get the power to fund private school vouchers? That power is nowhere to be found in the Ohio Constitution. In fact, the Ohio Constitution forbids it. Lawmakers have the authority and responsibility to fund “a” system of “common schools,” with common standards and resources for all of Ohio’s taxpayers, parents, and students,” Brown said at a press conference today outlining the lawsuit.
“Funding schools that aren’t for everybody is not the business of the Ohio General Assembly, and it is not the responsibility of Ohio taxpayers to pay for these private schools,” Brown said. “The Ohio General Assembly either knows they are violating the Ohio Constitution and doesn’t care or the members who support expanding the private school vouchers need a history lesson themselves.”
William L. Phillis, executive director for the Coalition of Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, was instrumental in leading the successful court challenge to the way Ohio pays for public schools during the ‘90s.
“The DeRolph school funding lawsuit was the case of the 20th century. The EdChoice private school voucher lawsuit we filed today is destined to be the case of the 21st Century,” Phillis said. “In fact, the private school voucher system is siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars from an already underfunded system of public schools. The legislature and the governor are putting our state and our public school children at risk and they admit it.”
Nneka Jackson, a school board member with the Richmond Heights School District in Cuyahoga County, said private school vouchers are making school segregation in Ohio worse, not better.
“If someone tells you this is about helping poor minority children, hook them up to a lie detector test asap and stand back because the sparks are going to fly,” Jackson said.
“About 40 percent of Richmond Heights residents are white. Before the EdChoice private school voucher program, about 26 percent of the students in the Richmond Heights School District were white and 74 percent were students of color. Today, after EdChoice, Richmond Heights is three percent white and 97 percent students of color,” Jackson said.
“Private schools are allowed to discriminate, plain and simple, based on disability, disciplinary records, academic standings, religion and financial status. These are often proxies for race and other protected characteristics. Ohio is essentially engaged in state-sponsored discrimination in admissions and retention. You know who can’t do this? Public schools. Common schools,” Jackson said.
Dan Heintz, a school board member in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, said his district lost more than $27 million to private school vouchers, and this forced voters to pass two levies to raise property taxes.
Heintz said 95 percent of our EdChoice voucher users have never been enrolled in one of our schools.
“So, contrary to the narrative, these families aren’t fleeing a failing school.”The only thing they’re fleeing is a tuition bill. A private school tuition bill that is now being paid by Ohio taxpayers,” Heintz said.
Eric Resnick, a school board member for Canton City Schools in Stark County, said high school students receive a $7,500 voucher while public school students receive far less from the state in basic education funding.
There is no truth to the claim by voucher proponents that “the money follows the student,” Resnick said. “To those who say the money should follow the student, I ask why the discrepancy? Why should voucher students get $7,500 and some public school students get one-fifth or less than that amount? If the money was truly following the student, then each public school student would also receive $7,500.”
The complaint can be read here.
School districts in the Vouchers Hurt Ohio coalition can be found here.
The E&A Coalition is working with Vouchers Hurt Ohio, a growing coalition of public school districts that have come together to sue the state over the unconstitutional and harmful private school voucher program. Vouchers Hurt Ohio now has nearly 100 member school districts in 47 of Ohio’s 88 counties that open their doors wide and welcoming to more than 250,000 public school students.
This is Jan Resseger’s commentary about the lawsuit.
I suspect the theocratic, fascist, anarchist, kleptocracy movement in the U.S. also known as Koch libertarianism among other terms (What do we call the movement funded by the Walmart Walton family?) is also behind the destroy public education movement with, I think, a goal to stop teaching children how to thin for themselves and instead, to beat them into obedient submission with bully tactics.
On that note, I read an interesting piece explaining why the Russian military is getting trounced by Ukraine’s Army and resistance forces. The Russian’s keep their officers and troops as separate as possible like futile lords over serfs. The troops are not allowed to make decisions and must follow all orders from their overlords without question. The troops were not taught in school as children how to think critically, and how to solve problems, and make decisions on their own.
The opposite is true for the military in the NATO and EU countries where the troops had an education that taught them to think independently and the troops apply that thinking to the battle field.
An example was a short video I watched where a journalist was embedded with Ukrainian troops on the front lines north of the capital city. After an example of gunfire with the Russian lines, one of the Ukrainian soldiers told the journalist we have to move now because the Russians are going to shell our position. So, without waiting for orders from the company, battalion, regiment or division commanders, the Ukrainian soldiers moved a few hundred yards from their previous firing positions and sure enough the Russians shelled the old position as they watched from a distance.
But Russian troops are not allowed to do anything unless they are told to do it by an officer, and all front line military units in fox holes and trenches do not have officers with them all the time. It takes time for orders to filter down to the front-line grunts while all it took was one Ukrainian, no matter what his rank, to say lets move now and they all moved. They didn’t have to wait for orders filtering down from on high.
“Heintz said 95 percent of our EdChoice voucher users have never been enrolled in one of our schools”
You will never hear this inconvenient fact mentioned in any of the hundreds of voucher cheerleading articles the ed reform echo chamber churns out annually.
The real shame in Ohio isn’t vouchers and charters. The real shame is that the “ed reform movement” has utterly captured state government and what that means for public schools is no one in Columbus lifts a finger on behalf of the schools 90% of students in the state attend. They contribute nothing to public schools. Session after session, our schools get nothing.
At some point I think Ohio voters may wake up to the fact that “ed reformers” don’t value public schools and public school students – all they have to do is read the record of their work.
If you’re a charter promoter or ideologically committed to abolishing public schools you should definitely hire and pay ed reformers. If your interest is public schools? Forget it. They add no value.
Vouchers often benefit the affluent as the voucher helps to supplement the tuition payments of those that can afford private school. At the same time they drain money from the public schools that serve the neediest, most vulnerable students. It is reverse Robin Hood policy, and a race to the bottom.
When this “movement” started we in Ohio were told they would “improve public schools”
They did nothing for public schools- instead they have spent the last twenty years marketing, promoting and lobbying for charters and private schools. Isn’t paying them for 20 years with no return for 90% of the students in the state long enough? Could we possibly hire some people who actually value public schools and intend to work on their behalf?
Did you know Ohio charters can (and do) spend tens of thousands in public funds opposing their own employees desire to join a union?
This is what we’re funding:
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/03/25/cleveland-charter-school-uses-public-dollars-to-fight-union-drive/
an important point: strong unions suggest an entirely different organization than organizations which actively oppress union membership
Off topic, but interesting statement today from MIT about reinstating the SAT and ACT for admissions.
https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-reinstating-our-sat-act-requirement-for-future-admissions-cycles/
Here’s one of the ed reform lobbying groups response to why their reforms of the last 20 years have not actually improved public schools:
“For the last decade, Ohio has talked the talk about setting high standards for students, holding schools accountable, and making sure that academic outcomes grow increasingly better over time. But as these policies are implemented and the sometimes-unwelcome consequences kick in, Ohio leaders have failed to walk the walk. House Bill 497 could be the latest example of the state’s bad habit of backing off when the going gets tough. Hopefully, though, Ohio will finally break the habit”
This is the ed reform cycle- the “reforms” don’t improve public schools and when that becomes so clear none of them can deny it, they have the fallback of claiming the reforms weren’t followed closely enough.
Ed reform cannot fail. It can only be failed, and only by public schools.
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/ohios-bad-habit-sidestepping-accountability.
Chiara– That Fordham link is so outrageous.
OH spends virtually the same per-pupil as the national average [OH $12,611, natl ave $12,264]. Their status on ed achievement: 75% or “C.” By another measure their ed achievement is 28th of 51, but that’s close [C-].
Looks to me like OH gets out what puts in. What is Fordham’s beef? Why do they have such a big mouth in OH? As far as I can see, Fordham spends zip on OH public ed. Au contraire, they have been putting their deep-pocket support for yrs strictly toward privatizing OH K12. If this article is any indication, that effort merely raises the cost of public ed for OH taxpayers, without raising achievement one iota.
Are Ohio’s vouchers strictly for students to attend private schools or can the money be used for homeschoolers too? I would love to see counties in WV unite to fight the Hope(less) Scholarship.
Why don’t public school students get the same amount? That is nuts.
I’m not against vouchers if public school students get the same stipend, and, if spcial education students get the full amount that covers the cost of their education. If the Ohil legislature can’t be honest about basic math, what is the point of algebra or beyond if the integriy of numbers is made a mockery of.
This alone shows what “school choice” costs one school district:
“Dan Heintz, a school board member in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, said his district lost more than $27 million to private school vouchers, and this forced voters to pass two levies to raise property taxes.”
And this—found in Jan Resseger’s summary of the lawsuit– shows what it costs all Ohio residents:
“No valid government explanation can justify spending two to ten times more per pupil to subsidize private school tuition than the per-pupil amounts paid by the state to educate Ohio’s public school students.”