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Good Tuesday morning,

Our coalition challenging the constitutionality of the EdChoice voucher system is now up to 333 public school districts and growing.

You can check to see if your district is part of our historic lawsuit here on our interactive map on our vouchershurtohio.com website.

Bookmark this page because we’re going to be adding information to it as our lawsuit progresses.

We believe each public school district in Ohio should be standing up for public schools, students, educators, local taxpayers and their communities by uniting around the lawsuit.

The EdChoice voucher system is taking away $1 billion a year from public schools at a time when the same pro-voucher lawmakers are shortchanging local schools.

The state’s share of paying for local schools will drop from 47 percent in 1999, meaning almost one of every two dollars spent on public schools came from Columbus, down to 32 percent in the upcoming school year, or two in every three dollars being local funding.

If you’ve ever wondered why local property taxes have soared, you can thank lawmakers in Columbus for neglecting local schools for nearly a quarter century.

So our challenge is not only to preserve public schools, but to protect local taxpayers who are put in the position of either supporting additional levies or watching their schools make tough decisions like cutting teachers, classroom opportunities, imposing pay-to-participate fees and other measures that undermine our communities.

Meanwhile, the EdChoice private school voucher program has exploded. There are no income limits for families.

The results are more than 90 percent of the families taking vouchers already had their children enrolled in private schools so this is a refund or rebate for them worth up to $6,166 for K-8 and $8,408 for high school vouchers.

And a boondoggle for the private, mostly religious schools, that are making the real choice in education by deciding who gets in and who does not with litmus tests for students that include family income, race, religion, athletic ability or disabilities.

This is why we’re suing and this is why we’re asking school districts to stand up for communities by joining our lawsuit.

You can help. Send an email to wphillis@gmail.com and we will get in touch with you so you can start working in your school district and your community to fight back against the harmful EdChoice private school voucher system and stand up for your students, educators and taxpayers.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

Policy Matters Ohio reported that public schools in our state were shortchanged $3 billion in the current two-year state budget when pro-voucher lawmakers dropped the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan.

At the same time Cupp Patterson, a plan adapted and initially adopted by state lawmakers to fund public schools at a constitutional level was deemed a “fantasy” and “unsustainable,” pro-voucher lawmakers are spending $1 billion a year on EdChoice private school vouchers.

No public schools were harmed more than Ohio’s Big 8 urban districts. Combined, those districts were shortchanged almost $600 million in the two-year budget or one of every five dollars that the state did not spend for children in public schools.

Reject the idea that declining enrollment is the reason for the state withholding these funds. The Cupp Patterson funding formula was based on current enrollment.

For this email, we’ll look only at Cleveland and Columbus, but the same thing is systematically happening in Ohio’s urban districts.

By far, Cleveland Public Schools was hardest hit. Under Cupp Patterson, they should have received $155.6 million more in the budget, but the district actually saw a reduction in state aid of $1.6 million.

In April, the school board announced it is is laying off 410 employees, including 146 teachers and 15 licensed practical nurses.

Pro-voucher state lawmakers cut funding to Columbus in the current budget by $24.8 million and Cupp Patterson called for $23.5 million more on top of that so the state’s largest public school district is short $48.3 million in state funding.

In February, Columbus eliminated 62 administrative jobs and in May cut 300 teaching and staff positions.

Columbus Education Association president John Coneglio said the budget crisis was due to the state “disinvesting in public education.”

Policy Matters research shows the state’s share of school funding has dropped from a high of 47 percent in 1999 to 35 percent in 2026 and 32 percent next year.

When the state disinvests in local schools, one of two things happen: schools seek property tax levies to make up the difference or make cuts in teachers, administrators, school bus drivers, AP classes, etc.

Sometimes both cuts and levies occur. Columbus voters passed a $100 million levy in 2023.

Columbus has been part of our lawsuit challenging the EdChoice private school voucher system from our inception.

Cleveland is not.

We think every school district in the state should stand up for their school children, their communities and their taxpayers and challenge the constitutionality of EdChoice vouchers.

In doing so, we are also calling on the state to fully fund Cupp Patterson, increase the state share of funding local schools back to the 47 percent level, and save local taxpayers billions in property taxes.

Is your district part of our historic lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

We are having a wonderful time at the Ohio State Fair this year, talking to hundreds of people who support their local public schools.

Here is a photo of our Hero Wall where current and former students write the names of their favorite teacher on a sticky note and place it alongside others. It fills up so fast each year that we need a second wall.

Many of the people we are talking to already oppose EdChoice private school vouchers.

Others get angry when they learn that pro-voucher lawmakers shortchanged public schools by $3 billion in the current budget while siphoning away $1.7 billion to mostly religious schools for mostly wealthy families whose children were never in public schools.

They should be mad. This is a ripoff of taxpayers without a shred of financial or academic accountability.

In past years, when we’ve been at the fair, the School Choice crowd has put up a booth. This year they ran up a white flag of surrender. Very few people were visiting them. The people running the booth were often sitting looking at their laptop computers all day long. 

Here is a photo of where School Choice has been the last few years.

The choice issue is a false flag. Our attorneys argued successfully in court that the real choice, the true power in who can use a voucher and who can’t, is in the hands of the private school operator.

Private schools use litmus tests like family wealth (a big one), race, religion, academic/athletic ability, disabilities, and any other reason for accepting or rejecting a student.

And here’s the kicker: they don’t have to explain anything. 

We have the people of Ohio on our side. 

We won at the lower court level where Judge Jaiza Page ruled EdChoice private school vouchers are unconstitutional, and we believe we will be successful when the 10th District Court of Appeals rules sometime later this year.

Here is a photo of Bill Phillis, who led the charge to successfully sue the state over the school funding formula and is leading our effort to challenge the constitutionality of EdChoice private school vouchers.

More than 330 school districts, and growing, have signed onto our historic lawsuit.

Is your district one of them? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Stop by our booth in the Bricker Building. We’ll be here through Sunday.

Good Tuesday morning,

We all should be grateful for the impressive pro-public school people in this state who have never flinched or wavered in their beliefs and are willing to speak truth to power.

We have anti-public school, pro-voucher lawmakers in Columbus who, unfortunately, run things.

They are the power. Or so they think.

House Speaker Matt Huffman told the Columbus Dispatch that “we can pretty much do what we want.”

Recently, the chairman for the Senate Education Committee, Andrew Brenner, suggested rural public schools in Ohio have less funding because “urban school systems (are) spending too much money inefficiently.”

Enter Ryan Cook, the CFO and treasurer for Columbus City Schools, and Antoinette Miranda, Columbus City Schools Board President.

Together, they penned a response to Brenner and the powers that be and we are thankful to them for stepping up and speaking out.

“He (Brenner) wasn’t just wrong – he was distracting Ohioans from the real problem,” the pair wrote. Read their Op/Ed here.

“The numbers tell a different story.”

“For every student educated in Columbus City Schools, the state of Ohio contributes just $4,442. Meanwhile, the residents of Columbus contribute $14,117 per student through local property taxes. Local taxpayers – not the state – carry the overwhelming burden of educating our children,” Miranda and Ryan write.

Here is their punchline: “This isn’t evidence of urban districts wasting money. It’s evidence of decades of legislative disinvestment.”

“The state’s share of public-school funding has fallen from approximately 47 percent following (the DeRolph decision that the funding system was unconstitutional in 1997) to a projected 32 percent in 2027.”

“As state support has declined, local taxpayers have been forced to make up the difference.”

Thank you Ryan Cook and Antoinette Miranda for speaking truth to power.

Rural schools are being harmed like all public schools by a disinvestment by lawmakers in public education.

At the same time, they are creating a separate system of schools for the haves through the EdChoice private (religious) scheme that will take $1.7 billion in tax dollars.

This is why we are suing. Matt Huffman and Andrew Brenner have the power in the legislature to do pretty much what they want unless someone challenges them.

Well, we are challenging them big time and winning.

Is your school district part of our historic lawsuit to protect public schools, public school children and taxpayers? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

We have a great group of grassroots advocates for public schools who work diligently in their home districts to convince their local school board members, superintendents, and treasurers to join our historic lawsuit.

To date, we have had more than 330 school districts involved, but there are more than 200 districts where local education leaders, like the proverbial ostrich, are sticking their heads deep into the sand.

If you talk to them, they have excuses, not reasons, for staying out of the lawsuit.

The big excuse is they won’t be able to pass a local levy if they join the lawsuit because a) voters in the community will be upset that they are spending $2 per pupil each year on our lawsuit to help pay for our legal costs and b) families taking vouchers in their community will vote against a levy.

Let’s examine these excuses for one moment to determine their degree of lameness.

The Ohio School Boards Association published a report recently on the 66 school levies that appeared across Ohio on the ballot on May 5. Voters approved 24 levies, and for the record, 16, or two of every three, have been part of our lawsuit.

As Dan Heintz, a school board member in Cleveland Heights University Heights, teacher in Chardon and a VHO Steering Committee member notes: “Our districts were twice as successful as others.”

So the idea that voters are rejecting levies because their district is part of our lawsuit is bunk. You can look at the OSBA report here.

Voters are rightly upset about rising property taxes, and we know the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of our anti-public school elected leaders in Columbus like Speaker Matt Huffman, then-Senate President Rob McColley, and finance chairs state Sen. Jerry Cirino and state Rep. Brian Stewart.

They are responsible for shortchanging public schools by $3 billion in the current state budget while funneling $1.7 billion to EdChoice private school vouchers for mostly wealthy families in mostly religious schools.

Decades of underfunding public schools have forced local districts to return again and again to voters for property tax increases. There is a huge connection.

But when public schools are losing $3 billion because lawmakers abandoned the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding plan, $2 per pupil is a small amount to pay to ask the courts to do the right thing for public schools and public school children.

Let’s look at the other flimsy excuse that local school officials use to go headfirst into the sand: voucher parents will vote against levies.

There is no proof that voucher parents support or oppose local levies based on whether a district has joined our lawsuit. But we know the vast majority of families taking vouchers never enrolled their children in public schools in the first place so they have already turned their back on public schools.

Maybe they would vote for levies to maintain their property values, but these parents are a big part of the problem, not the solution.

Let’s return to Dan Heintz for just a moment.

His district lost $27 million to EdChoice vouchers, and his district had to twice go back to voters asking for levies to keep the schools operating at an excellent level.

Dan went door-to-door as a board member in both levy campaigns, and he met face-to-face with voters who thanked him again and again for standing up to EdChoice vouchers.

Voters don’t like vouchers. Taxpayers are smart and wise to this scheme. Local educators, if they are communicating with their community, would be wise to stand up to vouchers because vouchers hurt Ohio, students, public schools, parents, educators, and, yes, taxpayers.

Enough excuses.

Is your district part of our historic lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio