The leadership of the Ohio legislature decided, without consulting the voters, to shift significant funding from public schools, which the overwhelming majority of students attend, to private schools, which are wholly unaccountable to the state.
It is an enduring puzzle as to why Republican-led legislatures in states like Ohio, Arizona, and Ohio demand strict accountability from public schools but no accountability from private schools that receive public money.
William Phillis, formerly a Deputy Commissioner of the Ohio Department of Education, puts a price tag on state subsidy of private schools: $1 billion.
One billion tax dollars per year will be going to private schools with no public audit.
In addition to non-public administrative cost reimbursement, auxiliary services, and student transportation services, the state will be providing a billion dollars per year for private school vouchers. There is no provision in Ohio law to audit private schools. Is this the way state government should treat taxpayers? Voucher expenditures will escalate year after year and the state is giving private schools an open checkbook without any financial accountability.
It gets worse. Some state officials are planning to authorize the use of tax funds for private school facilities with no public oversight. What are state officials thinking?
Ohio taxpayers need to wake up to chicanery concocted by state officials in Ohio.
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OhioEandA
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540 |ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| http://ohiocoalition.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Correction:
“It is an enduring puzzle as to why Republican-led legislatures in states like Ohio, Arizona, and Ohio demand strict accountability from PUBLIC schools but no accountability from private schools that receive public money.”
Be that as it may, how willl the Rethugs raise funds without giving our public school monies (taxes) to frauds and cheats who willingly give a portion back to said politicians?
LikeLike
An excellent question, and I thank you for raising it, Duane.
LikeLike
It’s no puzzle in Florida. The spouses of both the former and current superintendent of education profit from the system.
Follow the money in Ohio.
LikeLike
Adding my point to Duane’s excellent observation which he expressed as a question… theocracies flourish when there is no accountability.
In Ohio, the overwhelming majority of voucher money goes to Catholic schools. That was the original intent of vouchers, “Whose Choice? How school choice began in Ohio,” Akron Beacon Journal, Dec 14, 1999. The plan is for authoritarianism as replacement for democracy.
The connections among Koch, Catholic Conferences and school choice are evident. They are exemplified in Notre Dame Prof. Nicole Stelle Garnet, a Heritage Foundation Fellow (Koch) like Christopher Rufo. Garnet is the legal scholar credited as most influential in advancing religious charter schools. She is a good friend of Amy Comey Barrett.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Correction- Garnet and Rufo are Fellows of a different Koch organization, Manhattan Institute.
LikeLike
Indeed, an enduring puzzle as to why the
solution to the institutional powers,
established by power,
is doing more of what doesn’t hobble their
powers.
Beating on the demo-voter drum doesn’t
change the tax and transfer policy, or
stop testing.
LikeLike
Under both Democratic and Republican administrations. For example, under Barack Obama, via the Quantitative Easing policy, approximately 2 TRILLION (yes, with a T) worth of wealth was transferred from the middle class to the top 1 percent, the single largest such wealth transfer in human history.
LikeLike
SICK! How can they sleep at night?
LikeLike
When are states going to realize that charter and voucher schools come with a hefty pricetag and represent wasteful spending? Investing in public schools represents sound public policy. They are a more efficient and effective uses of public funding. They bring our people together with a common mission, accept all students, offer students civil rights protections and promote integration. Sending public money to unaccountable private entities is reckless, budget-busting policy.
Private choices should be paid for by private funds. If billionaires want to offer scholarships to the poor, they certainly have the funds to do so instead of damaging the schools that serve all students and the most poor students.
LikeLike
So many choices…
Totally transparent Public schools with rules from the democratic legislative process of each state designed to hold teachers accountable and school districts safe for children to attend — but not safe from lunatics with AR-15s. Is it my imagination, am I wrong, to think the lunatics only slaughter children in real public schools?
Private, for profit k-12 schools that cost both arms and both legs and are free from those rules public school have to follow. You know, the rules state legislators voted on to hold public school accountable for everything.
Religious schools in the private sector that program children to become loyalists for the different sects/cults that runs those schools. In some states they get public money to program children to support a future theocracy.
Mostly ruthless, abusive of teachers and children, cherry picking, public funded private sector charter schools with no rules and no transparency (with the never ending risk of going out of business or being caught breaking laws they can’t avoid, like fraud).
Vouchers for parents to spend anyway they want. On useless internet schools (many found guilty of fraud) where most children learn nothing and never earn a high school degree, religious schools programing our children to support a future theocracy, and private schools that still cost arms and legs even after the voucher is subtracted from the total price.
LikeLike
An NPR news reporter this afternoon said about the decision to hear the presidential immunity case that “covering some (Supreme Court) cases is like covering the Kremlin. It’s impossible to determine what’s going on behind the scenes and how decisions are being made.” Then, there was a discussion of Mitch McConnell’s blatant lack of respect for law in the legislative branch when supreme court justices were selected. What’s going on in Ohio with vouchers? It’s like asking what’s going on in the Kremlin.
LikeLike
By the way, speaking of the Kremlin, here’s an anecdote I find politically compelling regarding the opinions of young people. Reading Anne Frank, I asked my students to relate the past to the present and note a current event in which people are forced to hide from military forces. One replied Palestinians. Forty-six replied Ukrainians.
LikeLike
Diane
May I have your permission to publish today’s blog in our local paper (The Tribune Chronicle)? Your blog was so succinct and should wake up some people to where our Ohio taxes are going.
LikeLike
Susan,
Yes, yes, and yes.
The people of Ohio are very wasteful with their tax dollars.
LikeLike
Awesome
LikeLike
Diane… need to correct this… “Ohio demand strict accountability from private schools but no accountability from private schools that receive public money.”
LikeLike
Thank you for the correction.
LikeLike