OH: Feeding Vouchers, Gutting Public Ed, Ignoring Voters

Ohio continues its efforts to become the Florida of the Midwest.

Ohio's taxpayer-funded voucher program is now facing the state's 10th District Court of Appeals, where the state will try to overturn a decision from six months ago that the state's massive taxpayer-funded voucher program was ruled unconstitutional, courtesy of Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page.

The Plaintiffs submit that the EdChoice program unconstitutionally creates a second system of uncommon, private schools in violation of Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution. Defendants argue that EdChoice is not unconstitutional because the State has always funded private schools. Though this may be true, the State may not fund private schools at the expense of public schools or in a manner that undermines its obligation to public education.

Ohio's constitution, like several others, has language that protects the use of public funds for public education.  

The General Assembly ... 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.

But Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost argues that education funding is not a zero-sum game, which is transparent baloney. The state now spends a billion-with-a-b dollars on its voucher program. That does not represent a billion dollars that the state collected by raising taxes, but that it takes from other parts of the budget. As former legislator and education commentator Stephen Dyer shows, the percent of Ohio's K-12 budget that goes to public schools has dropped to less than 80%. In many areas, the state is giving far more to the voucher school than to the public school. As reported by Laura Hancock at cleveland.com: 

In the 2023-2024 school year, students in Richmond Heights Local School District received $1,530 in state funding. Students in Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District received $2,600. That’s far less that what EdChoice students in grades K-8 received, $6,166, and high school students got, $8,408.

Roughly 90% of the money going into the EdChoice program goes to private religious schools. The Institute for Justice, the libertarian legal shop founded with Koch seed money working this case, says that EdChoice funds scholarships, not a separate education system. The state argues that the legisltors didn't give that money to the religious schools-- the parents did. This is all also transparent baloney.

The Today in Ohio podcast raised a whacky question- if the state is going to spend a billion taxpayer dollars mostly to fund private religious schools, why shouldn't the taxpayers get to vote on it? The answer, of course, is that voucher fans know damn well that no voucher program has ever been approved by the voters in a state. Every taxpayer-funded school voucher program in the country was created by legislators avoiding democratic processes.

The lawsuit will almost certainly end up in the state supreme court, where GOP judges will have a chance to pretend that all this thinly sliced baloney is actually an honest solid argument. Stay tuned.