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Send This Post to Every Ohio Legislator

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2020 //
3

The Ohio Legislature has created a royal mess in its rush to give vouchers to almost every student in the state. They can’t decide whether the vouchers will be paid by taking money away from the state’s underfunded public schools and how to decide which children get public money to attend private schools.

Jan Resseger untangles the mess in her lucid way. 

Read the whole post, not just this excerpt for her clear analysis.

Rancor and confusion over the issue of EdChoice private school tuition vouchers filled the chambers of the Ohio Legislature all last week. In anticipation of the February 1st date when families were supposed to start signing up for vouchers for next school year, the Legislature set out to address problems with Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program, problems created when changes were surreptitiously inserted into the state budget last summer during last minute hearings by the conference committee.

Last week’s negotiations about the voucher program broke down entirely on Thursday night and Friday, however.  The Legislature has now delayed the EdChoice voucher sign-up process; it has given itself two months to address big problems in the program. Here is how the Plain Dealer‘s Patrick O’Donnell describes the chaos in Ohio:

“Ohio’s controversy over tuition vouchers sparked anger, political posturing and suspense in Columbus this week, with no clarity for anyone. That won’t come for two months.  Parents won’t know until April if their children are eligible to receive a tax-funded voucher toward private school tuition.  Vouchers applications that were supposed to start Saturday won’t. Private schools won’t know if they will receive any state tuition help. And about 1,200 public schools across Ohio don’t know if they will remain on a state list of underperforming schools which lets students use vouchers that are then billed to the district. Even state legislators can’t say what form Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program will take for the fall. After the Ohio House and Senate proposed drastic changes this week to rework which students would be eligible for vouchers and who would pay for them, negotiations fizzled. By Friday, with Saturday’s start of the voucher application looming, both houses voted to delay any applications until April 1, while they search for a compromise.”

One interesting detail about the huge fight in Columbus about school choice right now is that it is taking place among Ohio Republicans. The Ohio Senate has a Republican supermajority; the Ohio House recently dropped from a supermajority to a 61.6 percent Republican majority. Democrats are surely deeply involved, however. Ohio Democrats reliably support the institution of public education in this fight: They insist that public tax dollars ought to be spent on Ohio’s public schools, which everybody agrees remain underfunded.

Today’s debate, however, is about more than whether we ought to have vouchers. After all today in Ohio, we do have vouchers—five kinds of vouchers. There is the original 1996 Cleveland Scholarship program. Additionally there are now four statewide Ohio voucher programs:  Peterson Special Education vouchers, Autism vouchers, EdChoice vouchers, and a newer program, EdChoice Expansion vouchers.

As I listened to the January 31, 2020 Friday afternoon hearing in the Ohio Senate, what I heard were all sorts of arguments about a number of important policy questions. The debate was confusing, just as the whole week’s policy debate in and outside the legislature has been complicated and confounding. Legislators and advocates across Ohio are arguing about four different questions, but the debate has grown increasingly chaotic as people conflate the questions, their answers to the questions, and the intersection of the issues involved.  Here are the four questions:

  • Should Ohio pay for private school tuition vouchers out of the state’s education budget when the state should be spending the money to support what everyone agrees are underfunded public schools?
  • As far as the operation of the EdChoice voucher program goes, should qualification for the vouchers be based on the grades Ohio has been assigning to schools on the state report cards or should it be based on family income alone?
  • As far as the operation of the EdChoice voucher program goes, should the state fully fund the vouchers or should the state be deducting the price of the vouchers from local school district budgets?
  • As far as the operation of the EdChoice voucher program goes, what should the state do to hold harmless the school districts which lost millions of dollars during the current school year when an unexpected and explosive number of students already in private schools claimed vouchers which legislators had surreptitiously—in a brand new state budget—permitted them to claim through a local school district deduction?

Read on to learn Jan’s answers.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Peter Greene on Ohio’s Mad Love for Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2020 //
13

Peter Greene believes that Ohio is trying to be like Florida, hoping to expand  vouchers to every student as if every public school in Ohio is rotten. Once the voucher money is approved, the state doesn’t care about the quality of education. Ohio already has a low-performing charter industry, one of the worst in the nation, why not give vouchers to attend religious schools that use the Bible as their science textbook? I wish some entity in Ohio would place a referendum on the ballot and ask voters if they want to defund their public schools in order to expand public funding of vouchers and charters.

He writes:

You will recall that Ohio school districts are facing an explosion in costs as they enter the next phase of the privatization program. Phase One is familiar to most of us–you start out with vouchers and charters just for the poor families who have to “escape failing public schools.” Phase Two is the part where you expand the program so that it covers everybody.

Well, Ohio screwed up its Phase Two. Basically, they expanded the parameters of their privatization so quickly that lots of people noticed. The number of eligible school districts skyrocketed, and that brought attention to a crazy little quirk in their system, as noted by this report from a Cleveland tv station:

We analyzed data from the eight Northeast Ohio school districts that paid more than $1 million in EdChoice vouchers to area private schools during the 2019-2020 school year as part of the program.

Those districts include Akron, Canton, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Euclid, Garfield Heights, Lorain, Maple Heights, and Parma City Schools.

Out of the 6,319 students who received EdChoice vouchers, we found 4,013, or 63.5%, were never enrolled in the district left footing the bill for their vouchers.

Yep. That means that at the moment this kicks in, the district loses a buttload of money, while its costs are reduced by $0.00. This means that either the local school district cuts programs and services, or it raises taxes to replace the lost revenue, effectively calling on the taxpayers to help fund private school tuition for some students. I wonder how many legislators who helped engineer this are also opposed to plans from Democratic candidates to provide free college tuition at taxpayer expense?

The legislature has been running around frantically trying to– well, not head this off so much as slow it down just enough to reduce the number of angry phone calls their staff has to take. Nobody seems to be saying “This is a mistake” so much as they’e saying “Doing this so fast that people really notice is a mistake.” Someone cranked the heat on the frogs too fast. Meanwhile, this weekend was their last chance to get this fixed before next year’s voucher enrollment opens, and they have decided to punt because everyone is getting cranky.

Is this at least going to help some poor folks? Well, the proposal is to up the cap to 300% of poverty level. That’s $78,600 for a family of four. So there’s that.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Stephen Dyer: Ohio’s Voucher Crisis in 4 Charte

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2020 //
4

Ohio’s legislature is determined to wreak havoc on the public schools that most students attend. Vote these vandals out of office!

 

Steve Dyer: Ohio’s school voucher crisis in four charts
School choicers won’t be satisfied until each school age kid automatically receives a voucher to be cashed in at any place of “learning” even if it is at Uncle Joe’s Bar and Backroom School.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Ohio, Vouchers

Bill Phillis: Ohio Charter Owners Lose Appeal for Bonuses

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2020 //
1

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Adequacy and Equity writes:

 

Accel owner Ron Packard is in a tizzy because some of his charters did not qualify for Ohio’s charter bonus fund
Patrick O’Donnell’s January 11 Cleveland Plain Dealer article—State avoids “loophole” for charter school money, rejects applications for millions—sheds light on yet another charter loopholes embedded in Ohio law.
This loophole provides that charter bonus money appropriated for “high performing” charters can be distributed to “low performing” charters solely because their operator ran schools in other states that had received a federal grant.
For-profit Accel charter chain operator Ron Packard, applied for bonus funds for dozens of schools that didn’t qualify for charter bonus funds; however, he anticipated funding on the basis that an Accel charter in Colorado Springs received a federal charter school expansion grant a few years ago. But the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) rejected the Accel application, citing the Ohio Accel operation fails to connect with those in Colorado. (Who do you suppose got that out-of-state loophole inserted into Ohio Law?)
Ron Packard left K12 Inc. a few years ago as a $5 million per year executive to start Accel. He has a gang of charters in Ohio. Is there any doubt why Mr. Packard is in the education business?
The Gulen charter school chain also applied for bonus money on the basis of the out-of-state provision. Fortunately ODE rejected it on the same basis as the Accel rejection.
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ohio, Privatization

Ohio GOP Grovels at Feet of Fordham and ALEC

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2020 //
20

Bill Phillis writes about the GOP’s pusillanimous capitulation to its masters and is prepared to sacrifice its public schools to satisfy DC-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute and ALEC, funded by CharlesKoch, the Waltons, and DeVos.

He writes:

School choice zealots seem to be driving the state education policy train
In spite of the harm being heaped on school districts due to corruption in the charter industry and the wild expansion of vouchers, the school choice zealots are in control. State officials seem powerless to establish rational Ohio education policy.
According to current media reports, the voucher “fix” being considered in the Ohio Senate, would lessen the harm to some school districts in the near term but would set the stage for a universal voucher system in the future. The local choice zealots and their big boy moneyed allies, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Fordham Foundation, are driving policy that undercuts the very foundation of the public common school. State officials seem to cower when confronted by the choice crowd.
 
Time to march on Columbus.
Before I saw Bill Phillis’ post, I tweeted an article about a temporary “fix” proposed by the GOP.
Jan Resseger wrote to me that the “fix” is a fraud and her own integrated, mixed-income district will be devastated.

She wrote:

I noticed you forwarded the Dispatch piece as though it will help anybody.  The Ohio Senate “solution” will simply leave in place all the damage from current year.  In CH-UH we have 478 percent growth in vouchers this year.  These kids will carry those vouchers out of our district’s budget each year until they graduate from high school. 

We’ll hope that this afternoon the House mitigates this in some way.  Leaves vouchers in place for now—but moratorium on their growth for a while.  Leaves flawed state report cards in place without a deadline to change them.  Expands income cap on the other kind of state funded vouchers.

The mess is embedded right in this so-called “solution.”

–Jan

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Bill Phillis: Remember ECOT and $1 Billion of Lost School Revenue?

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2020 //
9

Bill Phillis is a public education activist in Ohio. He retired as Deputy State Superintendent of Education in Ohio several years ago.

He writes:

December 1, Columbus Dispatch Capitol Insider: Remember ECOT?
As the article indicates, most people have forgotten the ECOT debacle. The ECOT Man, William Lager, siphoned one billion dollars from school district budgets for a business plan that was designed to collect funds for tens of thousands of students that were not being served and tens of thousands of students that were underserved. Lager’s campaign funds-driven relationship with hundreds of state and federal officials over a couple decades allowed him to steal public money in public view. When citizens began asking questions about the thievery, some public officials scrambled to give the appearance of holding Lager accountable.
School districts will never receive back the millions and millions Lager illegally took from them.
Remember ECOT?
Most Ohioans have probably forgotten that the state is still trying to pry money from leaders of the now-defunct ECOT, the online charter school that shut down almost three years ago.
Even though the state started pursuing the money in 2018, a trial might not happen until 2021 under a recent timetable developed by lawyers for the state and those associated with the former Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.
The attorney general is seeking to recover millions from ECOT founder William Lager; his companies, Altair Management and IQ Innovations; and several former ECOT officials. The lawsuit says Lager had a fiduciary duty to ECOT that was violated by the contracts signed to funnel money to his companies.
The delay is needed because Lager and his companies dumped 50,000 pages of new documents on the state in mid-October, on top of 50,000 already provided, a joint court filing from both sides said.
“The state needs time to review this latest, massive document production,” the filing in Franklin County Common Pleas Court said.
The modified schedule calls for a status conference Sept. 15, 2020, with a trial to be scheduled afterward.
Bill Phillis, longtime head of the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding, remarked, “Although Lager amassed a lot of wealth on the backs of schoolchildren, it is doubtful that much, if any, will be recovered.”
William L. Phillis | Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding | 614.228.6540| ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net| www.ohiocoalition.org
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Ohio, Virtual Charter Schools

Jan Resseger: Ohio Voucher Plunges Public Districts into Fiscal Crisis

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2020 //
4

Jan Resegger summarizes the disastrous Ohio plan to expand vouchers and how grossly unfair it is to public schools, which enroll nearly 90% of the children in the state. As she points out, most of the children drawing money away from her district never attended public schools, yet now their tuition will be extracted from the budget of the public schools. Read her post in its entirety.

She writes:

On Tuesday afternoon, I went to a meeting of my monthly book discussion group—all of us retired and over 70.  But as we sat down with our coffee and before we discussed the book we had all been reading for the month, we found ourselves distracted by the topic that is tearing our community apart: the changes the Ohio Legislature made last summer in the fine print of the FY 20-21 state budget—changes that exploded the size of the state’s EdChoice school voucher program.

I wonder whether legislators have any real understanding of the collateral damage for particular communities from policies enacted without debate. Maybe, because our community has worked for fifty years to be a stable, racially and economically diverse community with emphasis on fair housing enforcement and integrated schools, legislators just write us off as another failed urban school district. After all, Ohio’s education policy emphasizes state takeover and privatization instead of equitable school funding. The state punishes instead of helping all but its most affluent, outer ring, exurban, “A”-rated school districts, where property values are high enough that state funding is not a worry.

What this year’s EdChoice voucher expansion means for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district where the members of my book discussion group all live is that—just to pay for the new vouchers—our school district has been forced to put a property tax levy on the March 17 primary election ballot. Ohio’s school finance expert, Howard Fleeter explains that in our school district, EdChoice voucher use has grown by 478 percent in a single year.  Fleeter continues: “Cleveland Heights isn’t losing any students…. They are just losing money.’” “If this doesn’t get unwound, I think it is significant enough in terms of the impact on the money schools get to undermine any new funding formula.”

Ohio deducts the price of the vouchers students carry to private and religious schools from the local school district budget even though, in the case of Cleveland Heights-University Heights this year, 94 percent of those students have never attended the public schools in our district. The state counts the voucher students who live in our community as though they are enrolled in our school district and then deducts the voucher from the local school budget, but the cost of each voucher is more than the state allocates per pupil.  In fact, in the current Ohio biennial FY20-21 state budget, state public education basic aid funding is frozen, which means our district actually gets no new state funding for each voucher student, but one hundred percent the cost of each voucher is deducted anyway.

Why are the people in my book group so upset about the voucher explosion and another levy on the ballot in March?  We are not a bunch of old ladies grousing about the burden of our taxes.  Two of us co-chaired a successful school levy campaign back in 1993; one person served on the board of education; and the rest were teachers in our school district. As we read the conversation threads on Next Door, where people are accusing our district of mismanaging funds, or paying teachers too much, or hiring too many school psychologists, we worry about all the undocumented misinformation floating around. Members of our group are anxious about our grandchildren and our neighbors’ children who depend on the public schools we have spent our lives supporting and protecting.  But it is difficult to explain what happened in the budget, our plight this winter set in motion last June and July in the budget conference committee, when amendments were added to the state budget without debate. It was done so quietly at the time that people across the state only began to grasp the impact later in August when the Ohio Association of School Business Officials alerted school treasurers about the potential impact.

Fortunately the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District sponsored a special public meeting on January 9, 2020, to explain the changes in the EdChoice Voucher Program and begin quelling the anxiety that is tearing our community apart. The school district has posted the powerpoint presentation from the meeting, and at the meeting,  the school district distributed a clear, factual brochure about the legislature’s changes in the EdChoice Vouchers.  The brochure explains: “(T)he program was expanded to the point of unsustainability. Ohio had fewer than 300 buildings deemed eligible for vouchers in 2018-2019; that number has exploded to 1,200 for 2020-2021. When the Ohio General Assembly passed its biennial budget in July 2019, it froze receipts at 2018-2019 levels. This means that for every new voucher used, none of the cost would be offset by state aid. Legislators also removed the provision that required students to attend a public school prior to using the voucher. Unable to prepare financially for the change, the District was forced the following month to negotiate one-year contracts with the teachers union, as opposed to multi-year contracts. In CH-UH, approximately 1,400 students, 94% of whom have never attended our K-12 public schools, are taking scholarships to attend private schools. This has amounted to an actual loss of $4.2 million for us last fiscal year and an estimated loss of $6.8 million this fiscal year.” Each time a student secures an EdChoice Voucher, that student can keep the voucher, paid for by the school district deduction, every year until the student graduates from high school.

The school district’s information handout continues: “The CH-UH City School District will ask the community for a new 7.9 mill operating levy in March. The current funding issues with EdChoice are the major reason for this millage. In fact, the District would not need to ask for a levy until 2023 if it weren’t for the way EdChoice was funded, and the millage would be significantly less.”

School districts across Ohio are demanding that the Legislature do something about what has become a crisis for many school districts. It is important that the Legislature act quickly, before the February EdChoice Voucher enrollment period for next school year. The Heights Coalition for Public Education, a community organization, has prepared a list of short-term voucher fixes which the Legislature should consider:

  1. “Remove budget language from House Bill 166 (the current state budget) expanding vouchers in grades 7-8 and for high schools.  Restore voucher language to pre-budget language.”
  2. Limit state report card ratings on which EdChoice schools are designated to 2017-18 and 2018-19.  Currently districts are held accountable all the way back to 2013-14, and considerable changes in school programming have occurred in the seven ensuing years.
  3. “Restore funding for school districts that have lost funds to voucher students who were not part of their 2019 Average Daily Enrollment.”
  4. “Cut the loss of funds for high poverty (50% economically disadvantage) districts at 5% and other school districts at 10%.”
  5. Adopt the funding methodology for EdChoice Expansion (another Ohio voucher program) which awards vouchers to needy students and pays for the vouchers fully with state funds (not the school district deduction).

State Senator Matt Huffman has long been among the Ohio Legislature’s strongest proponents of school vouchers.  Earlier this week, the Plain Dealer‘s Patrick O’Donnell reported that Senator Huffman himself supports the fifth voucher fix listed above: “State Sen. Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, wants a bigger change. He is resurrecting his 2017 proposal to offer vouchers to any family in Ohio whose income falls under certain limits… His proposal would have the state, not districts, pay for the vouchers of $4,650 for grades K-8 and the $6,000 a year for high school. That would eliminate many district complaints that voucher costs are killing their budgets.  He said the state can control costs by limiting how many students can use vouchers in a given year. Some extra money is already available in the budget, he said. ‘That seems to be the only way, really, to do this in a fair way,’ he added.”

There is reason for caution here, even though Huffman’s assessment is correct that eliminating the school district deduction method for funding vouchers is the only fair way to address what has become an urgent crisis for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City Schools and for many other Ohio school districts. We all remember Naomi Klein’s 2007 warningabout the danger of adopting “shock doctrine,” privatization policies in a hurry in the midst of a crisis. We need to be sure that any so-called fix isn’t just an opportunity for the Legislature to grow the state’s voucher programs in some other way.  After all, in the case of Ohio’s current voucher mess, the Ohio Legislature itself created the crisis by expanding school privatization with explosive growth in the EdChoice school district deduction.

This blog has emphatically and consistently opposed private school tuition vouchers paid for with public funds, because vouchers undermine public funding for public education. Education privatization is never in the public interest.

However, currently in Ohio, an existential crisis for local school districts demands an immediate solution. The Legislature has saddled school districts with a school privatization program whose size the Legislature has no incentive to control because the money quietly washes out of local school district budgets. Neither can school districts control what is happening to their local budgets when the Legislature has set up an uncontrollable flow of dollars into the vouchers.

Huffman’s proposed solution would not solve the bigger problem of Ohio school vouchers. On the other hand, Huffman’s plan would pay for the vouchers out of the state budget, and as he points out, if it were to be so inclined, the Legislature could control costs by limiting how many students can use vouchers in a given year. Huffman’s idea would address the immediate school district financial crisis. It would then be up to all of us to pressure the Legislature to control the size and number of Ohio school vouchers awarded each year. Perhaps we can motivate a future legislature to eliminate vouchers entirely and return to a system where public dollars serve the mass of our children in the public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, Ohio, Vouchers

Steve Hinnefeld: Voucher Schools Should Not Be Allowed to Discriminate. And They Should be Regulated.

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2020 //
28

Indiana blogger Steve Hinnefeld reports here that a Democratic legislator has proposed a bill that prevents voucher schools from discriminating against students, staff, or families based on their religion, race, sexual orientation, or disability.

Bill Phillis of Ohio has proposed that religious schools that get vouchers should be subject to the same laws and regulations as public schools and should be required to report their finances and take the same state tests as other publicly funded schools.

Will legislators in Ohio and Indiana tolerate any restrictions on voucher schools?

Will they too be required to be accountable in exchange for getting public money?

Or will the public be forced to pay for schools that discriminate and schools that indoctrinate their students into their religious world-view?

 

Categories Accountability, Bias, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Education Reform, Indiana, Ohio, Religion, Vouchers

Ohio: Legislator Says State Has “Duty” to Fund Religious Schools

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2020 //
8

Bill Phillis writes here about State Senator Matt Huffman, who is leading the fight to expand vouchers in Ohio. Phillis contrasts Huffman’s view with the state constitution. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in Espinoza v. Montana today, where plaintiffs seek to strike down all prohibitions by states of funding religious schools. Such a decision, encouraged by the Trump administration,  would validate Huffman’s assertion.

Bill Phillis writes:

Senator Matt Huffman: “shall be the duty of the General Assembly to fund the means of religious education”
 
Senator Matt Huffman, on Karen Kasler’s January 17, 2020 State of Ohio show (about 5 minutes into the show), said it is the constitutional duty of the General Assembly to fund the means of religious education. WOW. This is a brand new interpretation of the state’s constitutional responsibility.
What does the Constitution require of the state regarding the funding of education? Constitutional provisions relevant to the public common school system and education in general are reproduced below.
 
Article VI Section 1
Funds for Religious and Educational Purposes
The principal of all funds, arising from the sale, or other disposition of lands, or other property, granted or entrusted to this state for educational and religious purposes, shall be used or disposed of in such manner as the General Assembly shall prescribe by law.
(1851, am. 1968)
Article VI Section 2
School Funds
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.
Article VI Section 3
Public School System, Boards of Education
Provision shall be made by law for the organization, administration and control of the public school system of the state supported by public funds: provided, that each school district embraced wholly or in part within any city shall have the power by referendum vote to determine for itself the number of members and the organization of the district board of education, and provision shall be made by law for the exercise of this power by such school districts.
Article VI Section 4
State Board of Education
There shall be a state board of education which shall be selected in such manner and for such terms as shall be provided by law. There shall be a superintendent of public instruction, who shall be appointed by the state board of education. The respective powers and duties of the board and of the superintendent shall be prescribed by law.
(1912, am. 1953)
Article I Section 7
Rights of Conscience; Education; the Necessity of Religion and Knowledge
All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience. No person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or maintain any form of worship, against his consent; and no preference shall be given, by law, to any religious society; nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted. No religious test shall be required, as a qualification for office, nor shall any person be incompetent to be a witness on account of his religious belief; but nothing herein shall be construed to dispense with oaths and affirmations. Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to pass suitable laws, to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship, and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.
Phillis comments:
What do these provisions mean?
·        The state has the responsibility to fund a thorough and efficient system of common schools (Article VI section 2)
·        The state has the duty of providing for the organization, administration and control of the public school system supported by public funds (Article VI section 3)
·        Article VI sections 2 and 3 require the state to maintain and fund the public common school system.
·        The state has the duty to protect all religious groups in the exercise of public worship (Article I section 7)
·        The state has no right to compel any person to support any place of worship (use of tax funds to support religious institutions is contrary to the intent of Article I section 7
·        The state has the duty to encourage school and the means of instruction (Article I section 7)
·        The state has the duty to “use or dispose of funds” derived from the sale of lands or other property granted or entrusted to the state for education and religious purposes (Article VI section 1). Essentially funds are available pursuant to Article VI section 1.
Phillis asks:
Where in the Constitution is there authority for the state to support private religious schools, much less the duty to do so?
Categories Ohio, Religion, Separation of church and state

Ohio: Should States Subsidize Private and Religious Education by Subtracting Money from Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2020 //
12

Jan Resseger asks the ultimate cost about vouchers, in response to the Ohio legislature’s recent decision to expand vouchers to two-thirds of all school districts in the state, including high-performing districts.

Should public money be subtracted from public schools to underwrite vouchers for private and religious schools? The state’s public schools will be hit hard by the voucher law. And since research funded by the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute showed that kids lose ground in voucher schools, the expansion of vouchers will lower the overall quality of education in the state. Does Ohio have a death wish?

As Resseger shows, the expansion of vouchers is not about education; it is not about improving opportunities for poor kids. It is about damaging public schools and compelling the public to pay for religious education for children who never attended public schools, ever. All the blather about opportunity is blather.

She writes:

Wisconsin and Ohio were the pioneers, the states which launched school vouchers—public tax dollars covering private school tuition.  Wisconsin launched Milwaukee vouchers in 1990, and Ohio followed suit in 1996 with a Cleveland voucher program.

What are the problems with the idea of vouchers?

Vouchers have always been endorsed by their proponents as providing an escape for promising students from so-called “failing” public schools—as measured by test scores.  But research demonstrates (see here and here) that test scores correlate not with school quality but instead with the aggregate income of the neighborhoods where public schools are located and the families who live there.  Research demonstrates that ameliorating student poverty would more directly address students’ needs.

The idea that vouchers help students academically hasn’t held up either.  A study by the pro-voucher Thomas Fordham Institute demonstrates that in Ohio, voucher students regularly fall behind their public school counterparts.  But proponents of school privatization (including the Thomas Fordham Institute itself) regularly ignore the evidence.

In a recent summary published in The Nation, Jennifer Berkshire explains that while there is a lack of empirical evidence justifying vouchers, their proponents support them ideologically: “But the GOP’s true policy aim these days is much more ambitious: private school vouchers for all. In Ohio, students in two-thirds of the state’s school districts are now eligible for vouchers, a ballooning program that is on track to cost taxpayers $350 million by the end of the school year. And in Florida, school vouchers are now being offered to middle-class students, the latest gambit by conservatives in their effort to redefine public education as anything parents want to spend taxpayer money on. ‘For me, if the taxpayer is paying for the education, it’s public education,’ Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis proclaimed earlier this year.”

In Ohio, based on state report card grades which legislators from both parties seem to agree are deeply flawed, vouchers are now to be awarded to students in so-called ‘under-performing’ schools in 400 of the state’s 610 school districts. The Columbus Dispatch‘s Anna Staver explains, “(T)he legislature has widened the definition of a low-performing school to the point of absurdity, expanding the list of districts with ‘under-performing’ schools from 40 in the fall of 2018, to 139 in 2019, and around 400—nearly two-thirds of all districts in the state—by 2020.”

And EdChoice, one of the Ohio’s four statewide voucher programs, takes the money through the deduction method, counting the voucher student as enrolled in the local school and then extracting $4,650 for each elementary school voucher and $6,000 for each high school voucherright out of the public school district’s budget. But a serious problem arises because in Ohio, state funding is allocated at different rates from school district to school district, and in many cases the vouchers extract more dollars per pupil from the local school budget than the state awards to that district in per pupil state aid.

This year’s state budget brought a new threat to public schools via an amendment quietly added and never debated. Until this year, to qualify for a voucher, an Ohio student must have been enrolled in the public school in the year previous to applying for the voucher.  But, secreted into the state budget last summer was an amendment providing that high school students may now receive a voucher even if they have never been enrolled in a public school…

What is rarely mentioned in the voucher debates is that no state legislature creating a voucher program has added a new tax to pay for it.  Instead the money always comes out of the coffers of the state education budget and, as in Ohio today, out of local school district budgets.

Please read the rest. As usual, Resseger is right on target with deep context and analysis, informed by her keen sense of social justice and equity.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Equity, Ohio, Vouchers
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