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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

Good Tuesday morning,

The state is on track, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, of spending $1.175 billion on vouchers for the school year that just ended on June 30.

EdChoice, the subject of our lawsuit, gets the bulk of the money because in 2023 pro-voucher, anti-public school lawmakers expanded the program by removing income limits.

Les Wexner, the billionaire, is eligible for a partial voucher in Ohio.

Laura Hancock at the Plain Dealer writes: “Before universal income eligibility, in the 2022-23 school year, the state spend $610.2 million to educate 80,026 students in the five voucher programs. It jumped more than $300 million the next year.”

What happened? Wealthy families who had their children already enrolled started getting a voucher for basically a refund or a rebate on their tuition.

Religious voucher schools raised their tuition to capture the voucher, charge the wealthy families a little less, and it was a win-win for everyone except the public school children, public schools and taxpayers.

You can read Laura’s story here.

It’s only going to grow unless we do something to stop it.

EdChoice private school vouchers were declared unconstitutional on three counts by Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page on June 24, 2025. The state and outside pro-voucher counsel appealed that decision to the 10th District Court of Appeals, where it is now under consideration.

We know this case will end up before the Ohio Supreme Court and we are confident we are going to win.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

With the Fourth coming up this week, we’re going to brief.

We need your help, and it’s so easy.

If you follow us, and interact with us, on social media, you help spread the word about how EdChoice private school vouchers are hurting our public schools, our students, our communities, our taxpayers and our state.

Follow us on Facebook here.

On X (Twitter) here.

On Instagram here.

See, that wasn’t so hard.

And when you are on those platforms, interact with us so that our reach extends to others like you who are standing up for public schools.

Have a great Fourth of July and let’s keep working together to protect our schools.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

A week ago tonight, four school board members stood up for their local schools, their students, and their taxpayers and voted to join our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the harmful EdChoice private school voucher scheme.

Bravo.

Mentor is a district in Lake County represented by state Rep. Jamie Callender, the sponsor of the School Bully Bill proposal that would punish school districts financially for joining our lawsuit.

Mentor is also the district represented by state Sen. Jerry Cirino, who supports Callender’s idea. Cirino’s daughter is on the Mentor school board and voted against joining the lawsuit.

Enough about them. Let’s talk about the public school heroes.

First, there is John Sanford, a retired educator who lives in Mentor. He organized an online fundraiser, and the community chipped in more than $14,000 to pay the cost of Mentor joining the lawsuit.

Then there are the four board members who voted yes: President Maggie A. Cook, Vice-President Lauren Marchaza, Robert Haag, and Daniel Hardesty.

Times are tough in Mentor thanks to lawmakers like Callender and Cirino who are steering $1.7 billion in state tax dollars to EdChoice vouchers while shortchanging public schools across the state by $3 billion.

Mentor has made $6.6 million in cuts to staffing, transportation and student services and they are going to ask voters, who rejected a 4.9-mill operating levy in May, to raise their local taxes again to make up for the state’s neglect.

As the state continues to shift money to vouchers and underfund public schools, local boards, superintendents and treasurers either have to cut services to their students or ask local taxpayers to increase their burden.

That over-reliance on local property taxes is one of the reasons the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the school funding formula unconstitutional in the historic DeRolph decision.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on the meeting, and you can read the story here.

Some highlights:

Board member Lauren Marchaza said Mentor has already made hard choices, including redistricting, building closures and operational changes, while state leaders have continued to expand vouchers and limit public school funding.

Marchaza said more than $9 million connected to students attending private schools within Mentor’s boundaries are tied to voucher funding.

“That $9 million is money that could and absolutely should be staying right here to lower the financial burden on our local property taxes,” Marchaza said, adding the voucher program is “essentially charging Mentor taxpayers to fund a duplicate school system.”

Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page ruled a year ago in June that EdChoice vouchers are unconstitutional on three counts, including one count that vouchers create a separate and unequal system of schools.

More and more districts are joining our lawsuit because local board members understand that state lawmakers will continue to shift the burden of paying public schools to local taxpayers while they spend more and more on EdChoice vouchers that are going primarily to wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private, mostly religious schools.

We believe this is unconstitutional.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio