In response to a lawsuit filed by more than 300 public school districts, a state appeals court ruled vouchers unconstitutional. The vote was unanimous.

Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio State constitution says:

The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.

The Ohio Capitol State Journal reported:

An Ohio appellate court has ruled that the state’s “EdChoice” private school voucher program is unconstitutional. The program uses public taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition.

The program will still be able to exist, as the judges expect the state to appeal. An appeal will go to the 6-1 Republican-controlled Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio Republican state lawmakers made Ohio Supreme Court races overtly partisan by adding party labels in 2021.

The state Attorney General will appeal. He responded that parents should send their children to the school of their choice, and the state wants to help them.

The state of Ohio spent more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money on private school vouchers in fiscal year 2025.

A panel of Democratic judges on the 10th District Court of Appeals in Franklin County unanimously sided with the more than 300 public school districts that sued, alleging that the EdChoice private school voucher program was violating the Ohio Constitution by funding a separate school system, one with a lack of oversight that isn’t available to rural students.

“EdChoice, as presently structured and funded, secures with taxpayer funds a competing system of uncommon schools that is not subject to the same obligations imposed on Ohio’s system of common schools,” Judge Dave Leland wrote.

The voucher program is also illegal because it draws taxpayer money away from schools and cherry-picks the students it wants, which harms public schools.

Former Attorney General Dave Yost appealed Judge Jaiza Page’s 2025 ruling that the EdChoice universal school voucher program was unconstitutional. Less than a year later, Yost resigned as Ohio Attorney General to work for the Christian conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which actively defends and promotes universal school vouchers and public funding access for faith-based and religious schools. Alliance Defending Freedom is one of the most outspoken defenders of vouchers in the nation.

It’s not clear how the highest court of the state will rule, given its domination 6-1 by Republicans.