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Jan Resseger: Ohio Legislature Robs Public Schools to Fill Pockets of the Rich

By dianeravitch
July 25, 2025 //
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Jan Resseger writes here about the injustice of the budget for public schools passed by the Ohio legislature. Firmly in the control of hard-right Republicans, the legislature eagerly funds vouchers and charter schools while underfunding the public schools. As in every other state, the vast majority of Ohio students attend public schools. The only evaluation of the Ohio voucher program showed that most students who used the vouchers were already attending private schools; those who transferred from public schools fell behind the peers they left behind.

Ohio legislators know that vouchers and charters do not increase educational opportunity. They don’t care. Parents of public school students must inform themselves and act to protect their public schools.

She writes:

In the last week of June, two important events happened almost simultaneously in Ohio: A district court in Columbus found the state’s EdChoice voucher program unconstitutional, and the state legislature passed a budget that at the same time shorts the state’s public schools that serve the mass of our state’s children, significantly cuts the state income tax, and increases funding for private school vouchers over the next two years.

We all desperately hope the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit will save our public schools, but appeals of the case to higher courts will likely take several years, a period when the  new budget’s underfunding of the Fair School Funding Plan, the effect of the income tax cuts and the diversion money to private school vouchers will inevitably continue to diminish the state’s investment in Ohio’s public schools.

In the new budget, the legislature technically phased in a new Fair School Funding Plan—a mathematical formula to ensure that the state will guarantee adequate and equitably distributed state school funding. However, after the House Speaker called the plan unsustainable, the legislature failed fully to fund the new formula’s provisions and thereby ensured the new formula’s ultimate failure before Ohio can even try it out.

The Ohio legislature’s income tax reduction along with lawmakers’ choice to permit continuing growth of publicly funded, universal EdChoice private school tuition vouchers emerges from a philosophy that government’s responsibility is to protect individual parents’ freedom. Solid support for the state’s public schools would instead embody a commitment to what we call the social contract, explained here by economist Joseph Stiglitz:

“A social contract defines the relationship between individuals and societies, much as an actual contract would, outlining the obligations of the parties to the contract and to each other. There is one big difference between the social contract and ordinary contracts. When an actual contract is breached, there are consequences both for the relationship and especially for the breaching party… But when the state violates what it is supposed to do, there is no corresponding mechanism for enforcing the social contract.” The Road to Freedom, p. 86)

Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution definesthe state’s responsibility to provide a strong system of public education as part of the social contract: “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.”

Here are three ways in which the new state budget undermines Ohio’s public education social contract.

The New Ohio Budget Does Not Commit the State to Equitable and Adequate Public School Funding.

In a new brief, Lawmakers Underfund Ohio Schools by $2.86B in FY26-27; Veto Overrides Risk Another $330M, along with an attached PowerPoint slide presentation, Policy Matters Ohio shows how Ohio’s Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget undermines the new Fair School Funding Plan just as it is being launched.

The first slide of Policy Matters’ PowerPoint presentation summarizes the impact of the new budget for the state’s public schools: “Ohio lawmakers give a billion-dollar annual tax break to Ohioans earning six figures, underfund (public) schools by $2.86 billion, and leave behind students with the greatest need.”

In Slide 3, Policy Matters compares the amount of public school funding allocated in the new state budget to the amount the new Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP) would have awarded to each school district if the legislature had, as the formula requires it to do, correctly factored in the district’s current costs instead of old cost data from FY 2022. “Under the enacted plan, 74% of Ohio’s school districts will receive less than what the FSFP says they need to meet the costs of an adequate education.”

In a recent Hannah News Service publication, Howard Fleeter, Ohio’s well known school finance expert, explains¹ exactly how the legislature robs school districts of what they had expected under the Fair School Funding Plan: “One of the most important features of the Fair School Funding Plan is its utilization of an inputs-based approach to determining adequacy, which results in a base per-pupil amount which can vary across districts based on the number of students and their distribution across grade levels… In order to not just fully phase in the funding formula but to adequately fund it, the base cost in FY 26 should be based on FY 24 input data and the base cost in FY 27 should be based on FY 25 data.” However, this year the legislature used old, FY 2022 cost data, thereby failing accurately to measure school districts’ costs. In other words, the state should recognize that school district expenses rise year after year due to inflation, and the formula should recognize that school districts have to keep up or risk losing teachers and services.

In Policy Matters’ Slide 5, a bar graph demonstrates that in the new budget, legislators leave farthest behind the school districts serving concentrations of the state’s poorest students. These school districts will fall 107% behind what the FSFP would have brought them in state funding. Their school funding is actually being cut this year.

Part of the loss to school districts serving masses of poor children comes from a recalculation of Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid.  Slide 7 explains that the legislature used “direct certification, a process of identifying low-income students by relying on public benefits data that will lead to fewer low-income students being counted in the system and fewer DPIA dollars going to the places that desperately need them.” Why has the legislature chosen to base DPIA on a data set that will, “cut more than $200 million in DPIA funds over the next biennium, from FY 2025 levels of support”?

Slide 7 adds, as a preface to Slide 8, that the new budget, “appears use that money to offset the ‘performance’ supplement which is estimated to cost $215 million over the biennium.”  What is the Performance Supplement? Slide 8 explains: “The Performance Supplement would rely on (each district’s)  state report card data, increasing funding by $13 per student times the number of stars on their state report card or progress report… Report card scores are built on testing performance as well as factors like chronic absenteeism, and the ‘breadth of coursework available in the district.’ ”

Policy Matters Slide 8 clearly identifies the injustice embedded in the Performance Supplement: “Low scores on these indicators should signal to policymakers that the school and the community it serves are devalued, under-resourced, and in need of more help, not less.  It explicitly reverses course on closing opportunity and education gaps, which would help schools improve.” In Slide 8, we also learn that the budget adds a $225 per student Enrollment Growth Supplement for the fastest growing suburban school districts. While the supplement will help meet the costs of serving new students moving to these districts, it is important to remember that these are districts serving wealthier families.

In the brief itself, you can link to your own school district’s profile to see how your district fares under the new budget here.

The New Budget Reduces Ohio’s State Income Tax—Undermining the State’s Capacity to Raise Its Share of Public School Funding.

The Plain Dealer‘s Anna Staver explains: “Lawmakers eliminated the state’s top income tax bracket, collapsing Ohio’s tax structure from two rates to one. It’s the last step in a decade-long push for a flat tax —and this final move amounts to a $1.14 billion cut.”  Signal Ohio‘s Andrew Tobias adds: “That new top tax rate of 2.75% is lower than any surrounding state and lower than any time in the past five decades… About 96% of the $1.1 billion in annual lost revenue… will stay in the pockets of those earning $138,000 or more….” Policy Matters Ohio’s Slide 10 depicts the legislature’s new flat tax diverting a billion dollars of essential state revenue to wealthy individuals and away from the state’s social contract. The new budget exacerbates a long trend of tax slashing in Ohio. Last fall, Policy Matters Ohio’s Bailey Williams tracked two decades of Ohio tax cuts that have progressively reduced Ohio’s capacity to support the needs of the public and to support the system of common schools promised in the Ohio Constitution.

The New Budget Allows Private School Vouchers to Continue Eating Up School Revenue.

In his June 27th On the Money¹ school funding expert Howard Fleeter describes another primary drain on state revenue: private school tuition vouchers will continue to eat up an increasingly large chunk of the new state budget. Fleeter compares the legislature’s investment in public school funding to the legislature’s investment in private school vouchers. Fleeter calculates, “that state foundation funding for Ohio’s traditional school districts—spread across the state’s 609 local school districts—will increase by $281.9 million over the Fiscal Year 2026-2027 biennium compared to current funding levels.” He continues: “Voucher funding is slated to increase by $327.1 million over the FY26-27 biennium…. This increase is $45 million more than the increase slated for the traditional K-12 districts over the biennium, despite the fact that K-12 districts educate roughly 8 times as many students as do private schools.”

In the New Budget, Legislators Shift the Responsibility for Funding Public Schools More Heavily onto Local School Districts.

We continue to hear a lot from our legislators about the danger of rising property taxes, but ironically, by reducing the state’s investment in public education, the legislature itself has made it necessary for school districts to increase reliance on local property taxes or cut programs and teachers. Howard Fleeter concludes¹ that, in the current fiscal year (FY 2025) under the budget that passed two years ago, the state is paying 38.4% of public school funding in Ohio. In the new budget, in which the legislature has failed to update the cost data in the formula, has cut the state income tax, and has kept on letting an uncapped voucher program grow,“the average state share (of total public school funding) will drop to 35.0% in FY 26 and to 32.2% in FY 27….”

When a state violates the social contract by reneging on its responsibility to fund public schools, the funding burden falls more heavily and more inequitably on local school districts.

¹Howard Fleeter, “On The Money,” Hannah News Service, June 27, 2025, (available free in many public library research collections).

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, Ohio, Parents, Privatization

Stephen Dyer: Vouchers in Ohio Are a Disaster! I Told You So!

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2025 //
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Stephen Dyer is a public policy expert, a specialist in school finance, and a former legislator in Ohio. He warned 11 years that vouchers would drive the state budget over a fiscal cliff. The court decision a few days ago proves that he was right on target.

Let this be a warning to all the other states that are adopting vouchers (without the consent of the governed, in every case).

He writes:

Proponents have claimed for years that Ohio and U.S. Supreme Court cases from the program’s infancy allows for explosive growth. Judge Jaiza Page warns, “Not so fast.” Just like I did 11 years ago.

Dyer wrote the following 11years ago:

“Overall, the state is sending nearly $144 million to private schools this year. In 2010-2011, that number was $78.85 million — nearly half the amount. Makes you wonder whether the case upholding Ohio’s Vouchers in 2002 would have the same outcome today. Also makes me want to kind of find out.” — Stephen Dyer on 10th Period blog, Jan. 25, 2014

Now he writes:

I guess we found out Tuesday, didn’t we?

To be clear, I had no idea that anyone would actually file a lawsuit against Ohio’s unconstitutional Voucher system when I wrote that on Blogspot 11 years ago (though I really did want someone to do that). But given the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on vouchers at the turn of the century, I did question whether the state’s explosive funding of vouchers actually was justified under those rulings.

Guess who else agreed with me? Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page. While I focused in 2014 on the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, Judge Page focused on the 1999 Ohio Supreme Court case Simmons-Harris v. Goff. 

Goff reached a similar conclusion as Zelman — that given the program’s then-small educational footprint, both in terms of kids and money — it did not interfere with Ohio’s overall ability to educate its public school students, so the program (which at the time only included Cleveland) was ok.

However, when Goff was decided, the Cleveland Voucher Program cost $5.7 million. The just-passed state budget allocated $2.5 billion over the biennium to the current program.

And that’s where voucher proponents got waaaay out over their skis. I realized this 11 years ago. But now, it’s even more obvious. The programs examined by the U.S. and Ohio Supreme Courts at the turn of the century look very different from the current budget hog Judge Page examined.

And she made that factual difference really clear in her ruling:

“As to the thorough and efficient challenge, the court ultimately held, “[w]e fail to see how the School Voucher Program, at the current funding level, undermines the state’s obligation to public education.” (Emphasis added.) Id. From this language, the Court concludes that the Goff court foresaw a renewed challenge to a larger scholarship or voucher program like EdChoice as an unconstitutional state supported system of private schools. Goff warned that a system that does not create but supports nonpublic schools in a way that jeopardizes the thoroughness and efficiency of the State’s system of public schools violates Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution.”

Added to this is this incredible fact that was brought out in the court case: 

Not a single penny of voucher money goes to a single parent or student. It goes directly to private, mostly religious schools.

Let me repeat that for those of you in the back:

Not a single penny of voucher money goes to a single parent or student. It goes directly to private, mostly religious schools.

That’s right. This whole money-following-the-kid/parental-choice narrative that voucher proponents are still spilling out is complete, utter Grade A Bullshit.

In 1999, the money did go to parents and kids. Page was quite concerned about this payment change because the Ohio Constitution bans state establishment of religious schools. And if state money flows directly to religious schools that rely heavily on taxpayer subsidies (she mentioned that some private schools have 75% or more of their kids on vouchers), that is establishment and unconstitutional.

“By bestowing participating private religious schools with complete control over prospective students’ participation, the “school choice” here is made by the private school, not “as the result of independent decisions of parents and students.””

It’s as if the original creators of the Voucher program carefully crafted the legislation to pass judicial muster. Then when they got a favorable ruling, the gloves came off.

Oh yeah. One more thing: Not a single penny of the nearly $9 billion we will have spent on vouchers since 1997 has ever been audited. So we have no idea how the money on this unconstitutional program has actually been spent.

But I digress.

Luckily for Ohio’s 1.5 million public school kids, Judge Page recognized the program’s current reality rather than voucher proponents’ fictional account.

Just as your friendly neighborhood blogger did 11 years ago.

Not to brag. 

Well, maybe a little!

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Ohio: Judge Rules that EdChoice Vouchers Violate State Constitution

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2025 //
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In 2022, school districts, parents, and public school advocates filed a lawsuit against the state’s EdChoice voucher program. Yesterday, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page ruled that vouchers for private schools violate the state constitution.

The Constitution of Ohio says that the General Assembly is responsible for funding a thorough and efficient system of common schools. Common schools are public schools. It explicitly prohibits the use of public funds for religious schools. 

Judge Page issued the first ruling on the lawsuit, known as the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit, which challenged the constitutionality of vouchers. The plaintiffs were a group of dozens of public schools and the Coalition for Adequacy and Equity of School Funding. The state will appeal this ruling. For now, those who led the lawsuit are thrilled.

“We are pleased that the court affirmed what we have been saying all along,” William Phillis, executive director for the Coalition for Adequacy and Equity of School Funding, said. “The EdChoice private school voucher program, which has been diverting hundreds of millions of much needed tax dollars from public schools to private schools, is unconstitutional.” 

Phillis was behind another lawsuit over Ohio’s schools in the 1990s, which ruled Ohio’s system of funding schools did not adequately live up to the Constitutional requirements. The case, DeRolph v. Ohio, ruled the state’s reliance on property taxes and its funding system did not fulfil the Ohio Constitution’s requirement to create a “thorough and efficient system” of public schools.

Page said the state’s voucher program also fails to create a thorough and efficient system. She ruled the EdChoice program directly contributed to less funding for public schools, increased segregation in public schools as more white students participated in EdChoice, and unconstitutionally provided funds to religious schools without oversight.

Read the decision here.

Stephen Dyer, public school advocate and former legislator, writes on his blog Tenth Period that the decision exposes the lies that the voucher lobby has peddled for years.

Dyer writes:

There have been lots of stories and posts about the historic voucher decision made yesterday by Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page. But I want to take a step back with you, Dear Reader, and explain just how expertly the Judge laid bare the thing I’ve been spitting into the wind over for the past 15 or so years: Ohio school voucher advocates have been lying to you, the public and journalists for a generation. 

Let me point out a few of the most common lies told by voucher advocates.

  1. Ohio vouchers are scholarships. Ohio school choice advocates sometimes are too clever for themselves. Calling vouchers “scholarships” in law doesn’t make them “scholarships”. Yet that’s what these politicians insist we call them. Judge Page went right after this argument in her decision: “The idea that EdChoice establishes scholarships, not a system of schools, and that it funds students, not private schools, is mere semantics … Where EdChoice participating private schools are inexplicably receiving double the per pupil state funding than public schools, it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the student as opposed to a system that benefits private schools.”
  2. Vouchers are simply a matter of money following the student. This is the kind of EduSpeak bullshit I’ve railed against for years. As I’ve said in this space many times, when 85% of the K-12 students in your state only get 77% of the money spent on K-12 education in your state, money ain’t following the kids. It’s going to private schools. As Judge Page put it: “Where EdChoice participating private schools are inexplicably receiving double the per pupil state funding than public schools, it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the student as opposed to a system that benefits private schools.”
  3. Vouchers have no impact on public school students. This is obvious bullshit, yet proponents make the claim all the time, even well-thought of ones like the Fordham Institute (who actually argue it helps public school kids!). See, the problem is that when David Brennan started the Ohio Voucher program nearly 30 years ago, he thought he’d be so clever. See, he would (yes, I know legislators did this, but make no mistake about it, Brennan was calling the shots) put the program’s money into the same line item as school district funding. That way, the program could never be line item vetoed, and no matter how much more money the program needed, it would always get the amount it needed because the money would just come out of the state funding for kids in local school districts, who would then have to go for more and bigger property tax levies. But in this case, that cleverness bit voucher advocates in the ass. Because Judge Page can read a spreadsheet. As she put it: “The General Assembly … passed the (Fair School Funding Plan) to fulfill its constitutional directive and address Derolph. Yet, it has shirked that responsibility, by: at best, (1) claiming that the FSFP, a plan of its own creation, is too expensive; or, at worst (2) simply refusing to fund it. Instead, the General Assembly chose to expand their system of private school funding by about the same amount as Ohio’s public schools lost through the General Assembly’s failure to fully fund the FSFP.
  4. Vouchers are a Parental Rights issue.This line of bullshit emanates from the program’s origins — claiming that it would provide poor kids the opportunity to attend the same private schools rich kids do. However, the evidence is clear that’s simply not happening. In fact, it’s the schools — not the parents — that this unconstitutional system empowers. As Judge Page revealed for everyone to see: “Parents only choose which school they apply to. The ultimate decision to accept prospective students, and by doing so receive EdChoice funds, lies with the private school. (So) a private religious school has the discretion and ability to apply for and receive subsidies directly from the government, while at the same time discriminating against applicants on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria.”

There will be many more opportunities to go through this historic decision and pick out bits and pieces. But I thought it was important for everyone to recognize the major policy lies voucher advocates have pushed for 30 years were laid bare by this decision. 

Because at its core, Ohio’s unconstitutional voucher program benefits private, mostly religious schools at the expense of the 1.5 million Ohio kids who attend Ohio’s public schools. 

That’s the bottom line. 

And that’s been true since 1997.

Categories Education Reform, Extremism, Lies, Ohio, Vouchers

Denis Smith: What I Learned at the NPE Conference in Ohio

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2025 //
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Denis Smith retired from his position at the Ohio Department of Education, where he oversaw charter schools (which are called “community schools” in Ohio). In this post, he describes what he saw at the Network for Public Education Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in early April.

He wrote:

When It’s About Hands Off! That Also Applies to Public Schools

The Hands Off! demonstrations at the Ohio Statehouse that drew thousands of protestors wasn’t the only gathering of activists last weekend in downtown Columbus. Just a short distance away at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a smaller but equally passionate gathering of concerned citizens from across the nation came to Ohio’s capital city to attend the Network for Public Education’s National Conference and affirm their support for the common school, the very symbol of democracy in this increasingly divided nation.

That disunion is driven in part by the rapid growth of universal educational vouchers and charter schools, where public funds flow to private and religious schools as well as privately operated charter schools and where public accountability and oversight of taxpayer funds is limited or even absent. In many states, including Ohio, those public funds in the form of vouchers are drawn from the very state budget line item that is earmarked for public schools.

Of particular concern to the conference attendees is the division in communities fueled by vouchers, which have been shown in some states to subsidize private and religious school tuition exceeding 80% of those enrolled. In Ohio, according to research conducted by former Ohio legislator Stephen Dyer, the figure is 91%.Several speakers referred to this situation as “welfare for the rich” and “an entitlement for the wealthy.” 

The research shared at the conference also confirmed the findings of the National Coalition for Public Education that “most recipients of private school vouchers in universal programs are wealthy families whose children never attended public schools in the first place.” So much for the tired Republican rhetoric of vouchers being a lifeline of escape from “failing schools” for poor inner-city children.

Another strong area of concern shared at the NPE event was the growing intrusion of religious organizations like Life Wise Academy which recruit students for release time Bible study during the school day. While attendees were told that school guidelines direct that such activities are to be scheduled during electives and lunch, the programs still conflict with the normal school routine and put a burden on school resources, where time is needed for separating release time students and adjusting the instructional routine because of the arrival and departure of a group within the classroom.

One presenter, concerned about students receiving conflicting information, said that his experience as a science teacher found situations where there was a disconnect between what he termed “Biblical stories and objective facts.” In addition, he shared that a group of LifeWise students missed a solar eclipse because of their time in religious instruction.  

Some Ohio school districts, including Westerville and Worthington in Franklin County, had to amend their policies in the wake of HB 8, which mandated that districts have religious instruction release time policies in place. The district policies had been written as an attempt to lessen the possibility of other religious programs wanting access to students and the further disruption that would cause to the school routine. 

The recent legislative activity about accommodating religious groups like Life Wise is at variance with history, as conference chair and Network for Public Education founder Dr. Diane Ravitch pointed out in her remarks about the founding of Ohio. As part of the Northwest Territory, she noted that Ohio was originally divided into 32 plots, with plot 16, being reserved for a public school. No plot was set aside for a religious school.

Ohio became the first state to be formed from the Northwest Territory, and its provision for public education would become a prototype for the young republic. The common school, an idea central to the founders of the state, would be located such “that local schools would have an income and that the community schoolhouses would be centrally located for all children.”

Unfortunately, the idea of the common school being centrally located in every community is an idea not centrally located within the minds of right-wing Republican legislators. From the information exchanged at the conference, that is the case in the great majority of statehouses, and a matter of great concern for continuing national cohesiveness.

The theme of the NPE National Conference, Public Schools – Where All Students Are Welcome, stands in marked contrast with the exclusionary practices of private and religious schools where, unlike public schools, there are no requirements to accept and enroll every student interested in attending. While these schools are reluctant to accept students who may need additional instructional support, they show no reluctance in accepting state voucher payments.

Texas Rep. Gina Hinojosa. Photo: Texas House of Representatives

Texas State Representative Gina Hinojosa, one of the keynote speakers, told the audience about her experience in fighting Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher scheme and the double meaning of the term school choice. “School choice is also the school’s choice,” she told the audience, as she estimated that 80% or more of state funds will go to kids who are already enrolled in private and religious schools.

Her battle with the Texas governor, who has defined the passage of voucher legislation in the Lone Star State as his “urgent priority,” is a tale of his alliance with Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire who has donated $12 million so far to Abbott’s voucher crusade. 

Hinojosa was scathing in her criticism of Abbott and his fellow Republicans and of a party that once “worshipped at the altar of accountability.” Now, she told the attendees, “they want free cash money, with no strings attached.” 

“Grift, graft, and greed” is the narrative of appropriating public funds for private purposes, Hinojosa believes, a tale of supporting “free taxpayer money with no accountability.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Photo: Denis Smith

The NPE conference ended with an address by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee. With his background as a former teacher and coach, Walz had a strong connect with an audience comprised mostly of educators and public school advocates. His folksy language and sense of humor further endeared him to the conference attendees.

Based on the continuing bad behavior of Jeff Yass and other affluent actors in the voucher and charter wars, greedy bastards is a better descriptor than oligarchs, he observed. From the reaction of the audience and what they heard previously from Gina Hinojosa and other presenters, the language offered by Walz was a more accurate definition of welfare for the wealthy. 

At the end of his remarks, Walz encouraged educators not to despair but to accept their key place in society. “There is a sense that servant leadership comes out of serving in public education.”

Attendees at the NPE conference included educators, school board members, attorneys, legislators, clergy, and policy makers – a cross-section of America. Their presence affirmed a core belief that the public school, open to all, represents the very essence of a democratic society. And there is no debate about whether or notthose schools are under attack by right-wing legislatures intent on rewarding higher-income constituents with tuition support to schools that choose their students as they exercise the “school’s choice.”(As a devotee of the Apostrophe Protection Society, I applaud this distinction.)

So what are we going to do about this? Attendees left the conference with some strong themes.

The choir needs to sing louder.

Hope over fear. Aspiration over despair.

The road to totalitarianism is littered with people who say you’re overreacting.

Who are the leaders of the Democratic Party? They’re out there. On the streets.

It’s not just don’t give up. Be an activist.

As the loudness about the subject of what is more aptly described as “the school’s choice” gets louder,” you can bet that servant leaders like Diane Ravitch, Gina Hinojosa, Tim Walz and others are making a difference in responding to the challenge of servant leadership to ensure that the common school, so central to 19th century communities in the Northwest Territory and beyond, continues to be the choice of every community for defining America and the democracy it represents.

                                                                   

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Ohio, Supporting public schools, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Tim Walz Was the Highlight of the Best NPE Conference Ever

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2025 //
19

Last weekend, the Network for Public Education hosted its conference in Columbus, Ohio. Since our first conference in 2013 in Austin, everyone has said “this is the best ever,” and they said it again on April 7.

The attendees included the newly re-elected State Superintendent of Schools in Minnesota, Jill Underly. The Democratic leader of the Texas House Education Committee, Gina Hinojosa. Numerous teachers of the year from many states. Parent leaders from across the nation.

The Phyllis Bush Award for grassroots organizing was won by the Wisconsin Public Education Network, a parent-led group, who have stood firm for their public schools.

The David Award for the individual or group who courageously stands up to powerful forces on behalf of public schools and their students was won by Pastor Charles Johnson of Pastors for Texas Children, whose organization has fought against Governor Greg Abbott and the billionaires who want to impose vouchers, despite their failure everywhere else and the harm they will wreak on rural schools.

The last speaker was Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota and former Democratic candidate for Vice President in 2024. He was warm, funny, and inspiring.

Nearly 400 educators attended the conference from all across the nation, and everyone stayed to hear Governor Walz, who was wonderful. In time, I will post videos of the main presentations, including his. April 7 was his birthday, and it was too late to get a birthday cake. But two veteran educators left the hotel to find a bakery and returned with a cake.

I introduced Randi Weingarten and reminded the audience that Mike Pompeo had called her “the most dangerous person in the world,” which she should wear as a badge of honor.

Randi gave a rip-roaring speech that brought the audience to its feet. She presented Governor Walz with his birthday cake and everything sang “Happy birthday.”

He was fabulous. He was supposed to slip away at the end of his speech, through a private back door but someone caught up with him and asked for a selfie. Of course, he obliged. Within minutes, it appeared that at least 250 or more people were standing in line for a selfie. He did not leave. He signed autographs and posed for selfies with everyone who wanted one.

He is humble, self-effacing, has a crackling dry wit, and is most definitely a people person.

In the opening session on Friday night, I engaged in a Q & A with Josh Cowen about his recent book: The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers. Again, the room was overflowing. Josh was excellent at explaining the terrible results of vouchers and how they turned into a subsidy for wealthy families. Why do politicians continue to promote them. The billionaire money is irresistible.

The panels were fabulous. I participated in one about the close link between public schools and democracy. The room was packed, and we had people lining the walls. A panel led by Derek Black, law professor at the university of South Carolina, and Yohuru Williams, dean of the University of Saint Thomas in St. Paul, talked about the history of Black education, inspired by Derek’s new book Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy.

Here is the first report on the conference by Leonie Haimson, including a video clip of Randi presenting the birthday cake to Governor Walz and the audience singing “Happy Birthday” to him.

Public schools are in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration. The fact that they have failed matters not at all to religious zealots and libertarians. The fact that they bust state budgets doesn’t matter. The fact that they are a subsidy for rich families doesn’t matter. Those rich families will vote for the politicians who gave them a gift.

The urgency of standing up for public schools, defending their teachers, protecting their students, and fighting censorship of books and curriculum has never been more important than now.

The Network for Public Education is committed to stand up for kids, teachers, public schools, and communities. .

Categories Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corruption, Courage, Creativity, Democracy, Disruption, Education Reform, Equity, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Ohio, Vouchers

Stephen Dyer: Vouchers in Ohio Subsidize 91% of Students in Private Schools

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2025 //
5

Stephen Dyer is a former state legislator in Ohio. He is a practicing lawyer, an accomplished journalist, and a close observer of state education policy.

He wrote on his blog 10th Period:

According to state data from this year, a whopping 91% of parents with enrolled private school students are getting publicly subsidized tuition.

Ninety. One. Percent.

Back when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Cleveland’s voucher program was Constitutional in 2002, that number was 1.9%…

This has been done at the expense of Ohio’s 1.5 million public school students.

By the end of the currently proposed state budget, Public School students, who make up 84% of Ohio’s total student population, will receive 77.3% of all state K-12 funding. While the 9% of students whose parents receive taxpayer tuition subsidies will eat up 11% of all state K-12 funding¹.

Once again, the “money following the student” bullshit is laid bare by actual facts. 

If money were really just “following the student”, then each of the three systems’ share of funding should match their share of population.

Yet the state’s privately run Charter Schools and private school tuition subsidies for mostly wealthy parents make up a larger share of funding than they do population. 

At whose expense? 

Public School students. And Public School parents, who now have to raise more property taxes to make up for this massive diversion of state funds that has meant they’re receiving 8% less state funding than their population would demand.

Footnote:

(1). And this just includes formula funding for Charter Schools and the Voucher payments. If you include all the additional funding streams for Charter School facilities (and other giveaways), and the administrative cost and auxiliary services reimbursements for private schools, along with transportation funding for both privately run systems, these percentages are even a few percentages higher for Charters and Vouchers and lower for publics. But I wanted to be conservative in my estimate and keep it to just the foundation payments to Charters and the Vouchers only for privates.

Categories Education Industry, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Ohio Passes Its Own “Don’t Say Gay” Law

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2025 //
5

Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio signed a “Don’t Say Gay” law, which goes into effect in 90 days.

The blog Wonkette reported:

Ohio is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation. Oh, wait. We’ve said that before. And before that. But the point here is that gerrymanders — like fair elections — have consequences, and this week we saw some of the worst. Governor Mike DeWine, famous here at Wonkette for giving trans kids a brief reprievefrom the worst impulses of Ohio’s GOP legislative supermajority, has spent the last year hurting trans folks over and over to make up for that one act of kindness. This week’s example goes extra further to attack all the QTs and their alphabet friends by signing Ohio’s very first “Don’t Say Gay!” bill, HB 8. The bill is now a law and goes into effect 90 days from Thursday.

The bill is modeled after Florida’s, of course, thus the identical nickname even if it’s officially known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights. From The Advocate:

H.B. 8 prohibits educators from discussing “sexuality content” in grades K-3, and mandates that instruction at other levels be “age appropriate.” The bill defines “sexuality content” as “oral or written instruction, presentation, image or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology.” It does not define “sexual concepts,” [or] “gender ideology[.]”

Of course it doesn’t. You define those things specifically if you want to be really certain you get rid of exactly the content that’s causing a problem. You don’t define things specifically if your goal is to create a climate of self-censorship, where teachers are constantly afraid that a truly innocent bit of information will get them fired if their principal or a student’s parent interprets “gender ideology” a little more conservatively than the teacher herself. Is telling a first grader that it’s okay for boys to cook and do dishes and maybe even their own laundry “gender ideology”? Could be!

“Sexuality content” now can’t be taught without advance notice to parents (who have a right to opt their kids out). Thinking about telling Tim and Tina that they can’t bully Terri for having two dads? That might be acceptable under the “incidental” exception in paragraph G(5)(b), but it also might not. Better get a permission slip first!

The entire bill is so full of insane bureaucratic requirements that the Don’t Say Gay! label really sells the crazy short. Before each student starts classes each year, and again if a child transfers schools, every parent must be notified of all medical services available at or through the schools, as well as any “facilitated” by the school. What constitutes “facilitation”? Unclear! But we know that any time a student starts or stops receiving school counseling another notice must be sent.

Read the bill and it requires notice after notice after notice. If the child might be trans, definitely send a notice, but it’s not just that! Parents are now entitled to a letter from the school about any number of possible teaching topics, as well as any changes in “Student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.” The bill spells out that this includes “Any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s biological sex,” but it doesn’t stop there. Injuries, a change in academic performance, psychological trauma all have to be reported.

Meanwhile, parents can remove their children from school for hours per day for “religious instruction” without those kids being considered absent so long as they don’t miss “core curriculum subjects.” Religious instruction had previously been available subject to district discretion, conditions and limits, but no more. Now districts must release students for religious education, with no maximum number of hours away from the classroom.

As a whole, the bill goes somewhat farther than Florida’s law, and it’s unlikely to be interpreted leniently if legislators have anything to say about it. A year ago one of the sponsors and advocates for HB 8, state Rep. Beth Lear, actually said opponents of an anti-trans bathroom bill (now law) were better off dead:

“In Luke 17, Jesus says that if you cause one of these little ones of mine to stumble, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the deepest sea,” state Rep. Beth Lear said while defending House Bill 183 in a committee hearing.

Lear also compared transgender people to animals in her defense of the discriminatory bill, continuing: “If I had a child who thought he was a bird, am I going to take him to a doctor who tells him the best thing to do is to let him explore being a bird? And oh, by the way, there’s a five-story building next door — why don’t you jump off and see if you can fly?”

She seems nice! 

With bathroom bills, sports bills, anti-trans regulations on health care meant to be onerous enough to make care impossible without attracting the negative attention of a ban, and now HB 8, Ohio’s trans kids have suffered a horrifying wave of attacks for twelve months now, and with the GOP defeating a bill that could have ended their gerrymanders, nothing is getting better any time soon.

Categories Extremism, Gender, Ohio

Jan Resseger: Voucher Leader in Ohio Legislature Says Public Schools Cost Too Much

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2025 //
9

Jan Resseger writes today about Matt Huffman, Speaker of the House in Ohio and his determination to undermine the funding of the state’s public schools. If you read the previous post about the voucher movement in Ohio, you will recall that Huffman led the battle to enact vouchers for all families, including affluent families.

He is Catholic, he graduated from Catholic schools, and he has long been determined to get public funds to subsidize religious school tuition.

After the state was ordered to enact a plan to fund its schools fairly, relying less on property taxes, the legislature enacted the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan in 2021, which was supposed to be phased in over six years. Huffman recently declared that the plan was “unsustainable.”

Ohio has 1.75 million students in public schools. There are 173,156 students in the state’s non-public schools.

Using public dollars to pay the tuition of rich students who were already enrolled in private and religious schools is “sustainable” for the religious zealots in the legislature.

Ohio’s commitment to fair funding for public schools has been undermined by two Republican priorities:

  1. The universal voucher program now costs $1 billion a year.
  2. Republicans are determined to cut taxes and to reduce funding for public schools.

Those are Matt Huffman’s priorities, not adequate and fair funding for public schools.

Categories Accountability, Catholic Schools, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Funding, Ohio, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

ProPublica: Secret Papers Reveal How Ohio Politicians Worked with Religious Allies to Get Vouchers for All

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2025 //
10

Alec MacGillis wrote a story for ProPublica titled “On a Mission from God: Inside the Movement to Redirect Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Private Religious Schools.”

ProPublica gained access to a large trove of communications among the Governor of Ohio, George Voinovich, and prominent religious figures, planning how to pass legislation to send public money to religious schools. This, despite explicit language in the Ohio state constitution prohibiting state payments to religious schools.

Here is ProPublica’s overview of the article:

Reporting Highlights

  • The Ohio Model: Rarely seen letters show how the voucher movement started in the 1990s as a concealed effort to finance urban parochial schools and expanded to a much broader push.
  • Helping the Affluent: An initiative promoted as a civil rights cause — helping poor kids — is increasingly funneling money to families who already easily afford private school tuition.
  • The Voucher Deficit: Expanding programs threaten funding for public schools and put pressure on state budgets, as many religious-based schools enjoy new largesse.

The article begins thus:

On a Thursday morning last May, about a hundred people gathered in the atrium of the Ohio Capitol building to join in Christian worship. The “Prayer at the Statehouse” was organized by an advocacy group called the Center for Christian Virtue, whose growing influence was symbolized by its new headquarters, directly across from the capitol. It was also manifest in the officials who came to take part in the event: three state legislators and the ambitious lieutenant governor, Jon Husted.

After some prayer and singing, the center’s Christian Engagement Ambassador introduced Husted, asking him to “share with us about faith and intersecting faith with government.” Husted, a youthful 57-year-old, spoke intently about the prayer meetings that he leads in the governor’s office each month. “We bring appointed officials and elected officials together to talk about our faith in our work, in our service, and how it can strengthen us and make us better,” he said. The power of prayer, Husted suggested, could even supply political victories: “When we do that, great things happen — like advancing school choice so that every child in Ohio has a chance to go to the school of their choice.” The audience started applauding before he finished his sentence.

The center had played a key role in bringing about one of the most dramatic expansions of private school vouchers in the country, making it possible for all Ohio families — even the richest among them — to receive public money to pay for their children’s tuition. In the mid-1990s, Ohio became the second state to offer vouchers, but in those days they were available only in Cleveland and were billed as a way for disadvantaged children to escape struggling schools. Now the benefits extend to more than 150,000 students across the state, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion, the vast majority of which goes to the Catholic and evangelical institutions that dominate the private school landscape there.

What happened in Ohio was a stark illustration of a development that has often gone unnoticed, perhaps because it is largely taking place away from blue state media hubs. In the past few years, school vouchers have become universal in a dozen states, including Florida, Arizona and North Carolina. Proponents are pushing to add Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and others — and, with Donald Trump returning to the White House, they will likely have federal support.

The risks of universal vouchers are quickly coming to light. An initiative that was promoted for years as a civil ­rights cause — helping poor kids in troubled schools — is threatening to become a nationwide money grab. Many private schools are raising tuition rates to take advantage of the new funding, and new schools are being founded to capitalize on it. With private schools urging all their students’ families to apply, the money is flowing mostly to parents who are already able to afford tuition and to kids who are already enrolled in private schools. When vouchers do draw students away from public districts, they threaten to exacerbate declining enrollment, forcing underpopulated schools to close. More immediately, the cost of the programs is soaring, putting pressure on public school finances even as private schools prosper. In Arizona, voucher expenditures are hundreds of millions of dollars more than predicted, leaving an enormous shortfall in the state budget. States that provide funds to families for homeschooling or education-related expenses are contending with reports that the money is being used to cover such unusual purchases as kayaks, video game consoles and horseback-­riding lessons.

The voucher movement has been aided by a handful of billionaire advocates; it was also enabled, during the pandemic, by the backlash to extended school closures. (Private schools often reopened considerably faster than public schools.) Yet much of the public, even in conservative states, remains ambivalent about vouchers: Voters in Nebraska and Kentucky just rejected them in ballot referendums.

How, then, has the movement managed to triumph? The campaign in Ohio provides an object lesson — a model that voucher advocates have deployed elsewhere. Its details are recorded in a trove of private correspondence, much of it previously unpublished, that the movement’s leaders in Ohio sent to one another. The letters reveal a strategy to start with targeted programs that placed needy kids in parochial schools, then fight to expand the benefits to far richer families — a decadeslong effort by a network of politicians, church officials and activists, all united by a conviction that the separation of church and state is illegitimate. As one of the movement’s progenitors put it, “Government does a lousy job of substituting for religion.”

Please open the link to read this important article.

Thanks to ProPublica for its excellent reporting about the effort to privatize and defund American schools.

Categories Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Disruption, Education Reform, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Ohio, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Ohio: Laws Advance to Protect Voucher Schools While Punishing Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2024 //
3

David Pepper blasts the Republican legislators in Ohio for relieving private voucher schools of any burdens associated with transparency and accountability, while simultaneously threatening to close the public schools with the lowest test scores every year.

He writes about the dangerous shenanigans of the gang in the Legislature that hates public schools:

So the bill that impressed me was an attempt to do something about this growing black hole. 

Specifically, the bill would have:

2) required that private schools receiving vouchers administer the same standardized tests that public school students take, allowing an apples to apples comparison of the private school’s performance;

1) required that private schools receiving vouchers provide an annual report on how they are spending the public dollars they receive (and post that report on-line);

3) required that schools provide data on the income of students/families that receive vouchers along with other scholarships. (In states like Ohio, where they have removed all income limitations on vouchers recipients, the vast majority of voucher recipients were already attending, and could already afford, the private school they now use the voucher to pay for).

Again, these would be the bare minimum of safeguards for this out-of-control approach.

Which is, of course, exactly why the provisions were ultimately stripped out of the bill that ultimately passed the House Education Committee (where the original bill had been submitted).

Note: One of the points made by private school advocates was that the tests used to measure public school outcomes were not a good measure of the work they did.

So as the billions flow to private schools through vouchers, we taxpayers still don’t know how the funds are actually being spent. And we still don’t have an apples-to-apples comparison to see if all this unaccountable money is actually leading to improved or worse education results. (Other data show the answer is “worse”).

But for Public Schools…Shut them Down

So that’s the treatment of private schools receiving public dollars via vouchers. 

But wouldn’t you know it? For Ohio’s publicschools, constantly the target of attack and criticism, we see the exact opposite approach.

Rushing through the current “lame duck” Ohio legislative session is a brand new bill that takes seriously the same standardized tests the voucher-funded private schools convinced lawmakers they need not take (remember, they testified it’s not a good measure of their work). So seriously, the new bill proposes that all Ohio public school buildings that fall in the bottom five and 10 percent of two measures (both determined by standardized tests) for three years be shut down. 

Under the bill, local school boards would be forced either “to fire its principal and majority of staff or turn over operations to a private entity, charter, or another district.”

Public school advocates have pointed out many of the flaws of this approach, including that many of the entities that would “take over” these schools have no experience providing K-12 education at all. They’ve also pointed out that this approach bears similarities to the failed top-down approach from a 2015 bill which created Academic Distress Commissions for struggling districts. After stripping away local control, the Commissions did not generate improvements, and the approach was ultimately repealed.

But bigger picture, of course, is the differential treatment of the two systems: One type of publicly funded Ohio schools doesn’t have to provide even the bare minimum of accountability and transparency, while the other set would face turmoil and even shutdowns for failing to meet certain criteria not applied to the first group. 

It’s yet another blatant tipping of the scales towards privatizing public education.

Take Action

They are trying to rush this bill through the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee tomorrow. Here are steps you can take to stop it:

  • Contact your State Rep. Tell them the Ohio Senate is trying to pass a massive new school closure bill (SB 295) without any input from the House. Ask them, “Shouldn’t the House get a say on this issue??”
  • WHAT TO SAY:
    • SB 295 would remove local control from elected school board members and parents
    • The state should not be making big, closed-door decisions with little to no community involvement.
    • Our students deserve safe, equitable, fully-resourced, engaging schools in their own area! In most cases, closing local schools is bad for our communities and bad for Ohio. In ALL cases, parents and students should be heavily involved in the decision-making processes!
  • FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Categories Accountability, Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Inequity, Ohio, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Standardized Testing, Vouchers
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