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Good Tuesday morning,

We are winning in the court of law and we continue to win in the court of public opinion because we have great people on our side who put so much time and effort into helping to inform Ohioans about the harmful impact of EdChoice private school vouchers.

Meet Dan Heintz.

Dan is a teacher at Chardon High School. He is a school board member at Cleveland Heights-University Heights. And he is a fighter for public schools.

Dan has helped Vouchers Hurt Ohio in so many ways.

Dan’s district lost $27 million to vouchers so they had to ask voters twice to approve levies. As Dan was going door-to-door, voters in his district thanked him for standing up for their schools and their property taxes by opposing vouchers.

Dan was asked to debate the issue representing public schools against an advocate for vouchers. Three pro-voucher people turned down the chance to debate and so Dan appeared alone and schooled the audience on harmful vouchers.

The pro-voucher crowd was smart to avoid him.

Dan has traveled the state talking to teachers, active and retired, and appearing before school boards.

He was in Wilmington in southeast Ohio recently. Here is a great story about his appearance before the board that ran in the Wilmington News Journal. 

From the article: 

“Heintz outlined the constitutional foundation of the coalition’s case, centering on Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution. The 52-word clause mandates that the General Assembly maintain a “thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state” and bars any “religious or other sect” from having exclusive control or rights to state school funds.

Data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce indicates individual vouchers provide up to $6,166 annually for a K-8 student and up to $8,408 for a high school student for the 2025-26 school year. By comparison, Wilmington City Schools receives roughly $5,300 per pupil in state funding, matching the Ohio Legislative Service Commission’s projected $5,308 per student for 2025.

Heintz used enrollment figures from Wilmington Christian Academy to illustrate the local dynamic, stating that the example was intended to explain funding mechanics rather than criticize the school.

Department of Education and Workforce data presented by Heintz showed Wilmington Christian Academy received nearly $2 million in voucher funding in fiscal year 2025 across 330 of its 334 enrolled students. He added that the academy also receives more than $900 per pupil through Ohio’s Auxiliary Services program, which directs separate state money to chartered nonpublic schools.

Since 2018, the school has received more than $6.8 million in voucher funding and an additional $600,000 in auxiliary services support, paid through state tax revenues, Heintz said.

He noted that enrollment at schools like Wilmington Christian did not surge in proportion to the increase in vouchers following the 2023 universal expansion, suggesting that many vouchers subsidized students already enrolled in private institutions rather than new transfers from public schools.”

It’s hard to argue with the facts and the fact is Vouchers Hurt Ohio, hurt our children, our teachers, our communities and our taxpayers.

Last night, Monday, September 14, Dan appeared before the Pickerington School Board just east of Columbus, and he was well received as he explained how Vouchers Hurt Pickerington.

Thank you Dan!

If you want Dan or another representative of Vouchers Hurt Ohio to appear before your school board, send an email to ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

Students have returned to school as a new year dawns so you are probably seeing those Blue Birds transporting our children each morning and afternoon.

Did you know that public schools are required to transport EdChoice Voucher students to and from school?

Do you know how much it costs our public schools and Ohio taxpayers to transport these students?

If you don’t, you’re not alone.

The state isn’t really interested in nailing down a price tag for transporting private school children because the cost is borne for the most part by local property taxpayers.

This is what you call an unfunded mandate.

Let us reiterate we are not against private schools.

We agree with Eleanor Roosevelt, who once said, paraphrasing here, she supported private schools and she also supported parents paying for making the decision to enroll their children in private schools.

We oppose using public tax dollars to give wealthy families a refund and a rebate and private, mostly religious private schools, $1 billion a year. 

This is why we are suing the state and challenging the constitutionality of EdChoice private school vouchers.

To extend the former first lady’s thinking, if parents want to make the decision to enroll their children in private schools, then they, not Ohio taxpayers, should foot the bill for transportation.

There are public schools that are cutting back on transporting their own students because the cost of busing is busting their budgets.

This issue was decided years ago when we had a constitutional convention and the delegates debated the idea of using tax dollars for private schools and rejected that idea wholeheartedly.

Read Mike Curtin’s excellent overview of those discussions here in an Op/Ed he authored and published in the Columbus Dispatch.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

Pro-voucher advocates like to try to diminish the impact of our lawsuit by stating there is no guarantee public schools will get more money if EdChoice vouchers are ruled unconstitutional.

Well, they’re wrong.

Everyone knows there are no guarantees in life except death and taxes, and in the case of this pro-voucher legislature – more local property taxes.

But here is our guarantee.

We guarantee that if lawmakers would live up to their oaths of office, and commit to funding their own Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan, then public schools would get more money when EdChoice is ruled unconstitutional.

Pro-voucher lawmakers shortchanged public schools nearly $3 billion in the current two-year state budget while funneling nearly $2 billion to EdChoice.

In doing so, they are increasing the over-reliance on local property taxes to pay for public schools. This is unconstitutional.

Here’s the thing: the money for EdChoice private school vouchers comes out of the same line-item in the two-year state budget that pays for the state’s share of funding public schools.

These lawmakers don’t separate the two because then it would be glaringly apparent how they are underfunding public schools.

Policy Matters reports the state share of funding local schools was as high as 47 percent in 1999. It is estimated to be as low as 32 percent in the current school year.

So yes, we guarantee if pro-voucher lawmakers would do their job and fund public schools, then the money from the unconstitutional EdChoice private school voucher program would go to public schools.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

Vouchers Hurt Sylvania City schools, its students, educators, parents, taxpayers – the entire community.

The Toledo Blade is reporting that on Monday, the Sylvania City Schools Board of Education in Lucas County near Toledo passed a resolution approving $11.3 million in cuts if an upcoming levy on the November ballot fails.

On Aug. 4, Superintendent Tim Zieroff said those cuts would be $4.2 million for teaching and learning programs, $1 million for special education, $745,000 in transportation, $1.2 for administration, $1.3 million for student support services, $857,000 for business operations and $1.7 million for student activities.

Kindergarten would go from full-day to half-day, and the district would eliminate all extracurricular activities, athletics, and high school transportation services.

Here’s the really sad part: Sylvania’s Superintendent, Treasurer and School Board members are doing a great job in a great district, but the deck is stacked against them.

While pro-voucher lawmakers were funneling $1.7 billion to EdChoice private school voucher schools, mostly religious, for mostly wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools, they were actually cutting funding to Sylvania City Schools.

In the current two-year state budget, state funding for Sylvania goes down by $921,967, according to Policy Matters Ohio.

It gets even worse when you take into consideration how much money Sylvania would have received under the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding plan.

When pro-voucher lawmakers and Gov. Mike DeWine abandoned Cupp Patterson, it cost Sylvania $5,020,047, according to Policy Matters.

This is happening in public school district after public school district.

The state is backing away from its obligation to fund schools.

It bears repeating: the state’s share of paying for local schools was as high as 47 percent in 1999. This school year, the state’s share will drop to 32 percent.

What can public schools do other than ask voters to support higher local taxes or make draconian cuts in service for their students?

This is why we are suing. 

We’re thankful Sylvania City Schools joined our lawsuit.

Check out our new map on our home page, and find out if your district is part of our lawsuit here.

We think every public school should join our lawsuit to stand up for students, educators, taxpayers and their communities.

Join our lawsuit here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

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