If your family is not receiving a voucher, your family is paying for a voucher

April 14, 2026

Good Tuesday morning,

If your family is not receiving a voucher, your family is paying for a voucher.

Dan Heintz recently made this point in an Op/Ed he penned for the Cleveland Plain Dealer | cleveland.com. Read it here.

Heintz is a teacher, an elected board member in Cleveland Heights – University Heights, and a member of the Steering Committee of Vouchers Hurt Ohio.

He rightly points out in his column that there is a storm brewing against EdChoice private school vouchers across the state, and particularly in rural Ohio.

It’s simple math.

Ohioans are angry as they witness the rise of their local property taxes. A coalition of angry property owners is collecting signatures to put an issue before voters to abolish the property tax.

Here’s another part of the calculation: State lawmakers in charge of the state budget have shortchanged funding for local public schools and shifted the burden for paying for public education more and more onto the backs of local property owners.

In the most recent two-year budget, state lawmakers underfunded public schools by $3 billion, according to Policy Matters Ohio.

The result is that local school districts must go to voters and ask them to pass levies to make up for the lost revenue.

Now, the state is flush with money generated largely from income and sales tax revenue that flows to Columbus, but is not returned to local public schools. They can pay for things like the new Cleveland Browns football stadium, but not classrooms for our children.

The third part of the equation? These same state lawmakers and Gov. DeWine will spend $1.7 billion during this same two-year period to fund the unconstitutional EdChoice private school voucher program.

EdChoice is a boondoggle for private school operators, mostly religious, and a refund and rebate program for mostly wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools.

It’s a ripoff, and the bill is being paid by local property owners.

So when Dan Heintz says if your family isn’t receiving a voucher, then your family is paying for a voucher, he isn’t exaggerating one bit.

Vouchers Hurt Ohio is a growing coalition of public schools formed to challenge the constitutionality of the EdChoice private school voucher program.

Is your district part of our historic lawsuit? Check here. If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio