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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

Good Tuesday morning,

There’s been a lot of negative press about the private school voucher scheme in Texas.

Rightly so.

But on a lot of fronts, Texas is not as bad as Ohio.

Sure, everything is bigger in Texas so the saying goes, but…

Texas has put a cap on spending on vouchers. Ohio has none.

Funding for EdChoice private school vouchers comes out of the same line-item in the state budget that pays for public schools. When lawmakers abandoned the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding plan, they shortchanged public schools $3 billion over the next two years, according to Policy Matters Ohio.

These same lawmakers didn’t sell EdChoice vouchers short, however. There is no limit in Ohio.

Ohio is like the Field of Dreams for EdChoice vouchers. If you apply, you will get a voucher. You know who denies vouchers in Ohio? Private schools. They accept or reject applicants based on wealth (can you pony up to pay increased tuition to go along with the voucher)? Does the child pass the litmus tests on race, religion, academics, athletics, disabilities, or any other reason known or unknown for saying yes or no?

Texas will have a lottery and a waitlist when the money runs out. Ohio will just spend all the public tax dollars it needs to fully fund EdChoice. All vouchers all the time.

Like Texas, the voucher program in the Lone Star State is big. The Texas Comptroller’s Office (TCO) reported recently that about 250,000 students will be eligible to take part, and the state will spend around $1 billion a year.

The TCO reported receiving 274,183 applications, ruling 247,032 eligible, declaring 24,941 ineligible, with 2,210 still under review.

In Ohio, there are no income limits, meaning Les Wexner, the billionaire, is eligible for a voucher along with all the other millionaires in the Buckeye State Voucher Bonanza!

Texas has priority tiers. Nearly 30,000 students, or 12 percent, are in the first-priority tier, which is low or middle-income students with disabilities who come from families at or below 500 percent of the federal poverty line. These families earn $165,000 or less per year for a family of four.

You’re probably starting to get a feel for the difference between Texas and Ohio.

Now, don’t get us wrong, we believe everything Texas is doing is wrong and like Ohio, unconstitutional.

Public dollars should not pay for private education, but if Texas is getting raked over the coals for their program, where does Ohio stand?

Well, we don’t know what is going on out there in EdChoice land because we have a state auditor, Keith Faber, who refuses to ask a single question about the state spending $1.7 billion over the next two years on an unaccountable, financially and educationally, private school voucher program.

Instead, Faber tries to bully public schools for standing up for the rights of their children, educators, communities, and taxpayers.

The good news is we are winning. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page ruled EdChoice vouchers are unconstitutional on 3 counts in June, 2025. The case is now before the 10th District Court of Appeals.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

A lot has been made of the fact that state lawmakers and Gov. Mike DeWine approved a two-year state budget that will send $1.7 billion to the harmful EdChoice private school voucher scheme.

These are public tax dollars.

At the same time, less has been said about the legislature and DeWine shortchanging our local public schools to the tune of $3 billion in the next two years.

THREE BILLION DOLLARS!

A few years ago, two lawmakers, Bob Cupp, a Republican from Allen County, and John Patterson, a Democrat from Ashtabula County, worked with a lot of their fellow lawmakers, education experts and advocates and developed a constitutional funding formula for Ohio’s schools.

The Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan was accepted by the governor and lawmakers, and a plan to phase in the funding over six years, or three biennual budget cycles, was approved.

This was historic and great news for public schools and the children in those public schools.

Lawmakers kept their promise for four years, but an unfunny thing happened on the way to constitutionality in 2025.

House Speaker Matt Huffman said Cupp Patterson was a fantasy and unsustainable.

Huffman scrapped the funding level necessary to be constitutional, the funding level lawmakers and the governor agreed was needed to ensure each child in Ohio’s public schools would have a thorough and efficient opportunity for an education.

Gone.

Here’s what Policy Matters Ohio has to say about the end of the Fair School Funding Plan.

“The Fair School Funding Plan was based on the actual cost of educating every student. It would have provided an additional $3.0 billion to Ohio school districts over the biennium. Now, including a new, misguided performance supplement, Ohio’s operating budget for fiscal years 2026-27 provides just 9.3 percent of the additional state funding schools need to educate every student.”

We’ll say it again: the $1.7 billion for the EdChoice private school voucher scheme comes out of the same line-item in the budget that funds public schools.

Do you want to see how your district was shortchanged? Here is a link to research by Policy Matters Ohio showing each school district.

In June, 2025, Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page ruled EdChoice unconstitutional on three counts. The second count being the state cannot underfund public schools at an unconstitutional level while diverting public tax dollars to private schools.

If your district is being shortchanged, you should be part of our historic lawsuit.

Check here.

Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

Our attorneys are using the Ohio Constitution as the basis for our lawsuit challenging the harmful EdChoice private school voucher scheme that will siphon away $1.7 billion from public schools in the next two years.

The pro-voucher crowd cannot refer to the Ohio Constitution, so they rely on mythology to justify giving mostly wealthy families a tuition refund or a rebate for having already enrolled their children in private, mostly religious, schools.

One of the biggest myths is this idea called parental or student choice.

You’ve heard them say it: the money should follow the student or the parent who chooses where to send their children to school.

Is it really that simple? No.

Parents don’t get to choose under this EdChoice voucher system.

Want proof?

First, vouchers for K-8 students and high school students, while much more than the state is often giving to public schools per pupil for K-12 students, is not enough to pay to enroll in most of the private schools taking in millions of tax dollars.

Once the state passed universal vouchers with no income limits, which means Les Wexner and other billionaires and millionaires are eligible for voucher money, the private schools starting grabbing the voucher money and raising their tuition.

So parents are still paying something, but it is less than they paid before, which is why we say this is a refund and rebate program for the wealthy.

You know who gets left out? Families who cannot afford to pony up out of their own household incomes.

So the voucher program, once touted as a way to give poor, often minority, families a “choice” is really a cruel hoax and a lie.

A poor parent doesn’t have a choice.

It’s even uglier when you look into the private school voucher scheme because the real choice, the true power, in all of this is the private school operators.

See, they get to choose who gets in and who is told no because private school operators, while taking in $1.7 billion in the next two years, can and do apply litmus tests to students and their families.

These include religion, race, family income, academic and athletic ability, disabilities, and any other thing they want to use to open or close the door on parents and children.

It’s their choice. Not the parents. Not the students.

Public schools are open to all students.

Does this upset you? It should.

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

If not, maybe it’s time you joined our historic lawsuit here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

It is sad to see what is happening in Ohio and across our country regarding the growing problem with states using public tax dollars to openly fund private, most often, religious education.

In state after state where programs like Ohio’s universal private school voucher program known as EdChoice has been pushed upon the public, there have been scandals, outrage and backlash.

In Florida and Texas, state lawmakers have pushed for giving public tax dollars to religious schools, as long as they approve of the religion.

Now they are facing backlash for excluding Islamic schools from applying for vouchers.

Texas, Florida face pushback over efforts to exclude Islamic schools from school voucher programs

Our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the harmful $1.7 billion private school maintains no private, religious school should receive tax dollars because public dollars are for public schools, period.

In Arizona, reporters found voucher money was used to buy diamond rings and necklaces, appliances, lingerie, IPhones, smart TVs, and gift cards.

I-TEAM: ESA parents bought diamond rings, lingerie, and Kenmore appliances with education tax dollars

We don’t know how the $1.7 billion going to private schools is being spent because there is zero financial or academic accountability for EdChoice. Zero.

At the same time, Arizona’s public schools are suffering and a judge ruled in August the funding system was unconstitutional. The ruling included photos of damaged roofs, cracked floors, and peeling walls, and cited teachers using their own money for school supplies while vouchers spending rose to more than $1 billion.

Our lawsuit makes the same point. Ohio lawmakers and Gov. DeWine are shortchanging the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan devised to address Ohio’s unconstitutional public school formula while giving voucher schools $1.7 billion, mostly for wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools.

In Ohio, the top issue at the gathering of the Ohio School Boards Association last November was vouchers.

Denis Smith, a retired school administrator who served as a consultant in the Ohio Department of Education’s charter school office, wrote following the OSBA meeting:

“The top issue facing Ohio schools isn’t a shortage of bus drivers, scarce substitute teachers, or funding for aging school buses. It’s the expanded universal private school voucher program that is devastating the long-range viability of public education and diverting more than $1 billion annually from the state treasury to support private and religious schools.”

Ohio School Boards Association conference reveals growing reaction against vouchers and lawmakers

The good news is public schools and their supporters are fighting back in each of these states, and winning in court cases like we have so far with a ruling in June, 2025 by Franklin Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page that EdChoice Vouchers are unconstitutional on three counts.

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

If not, why not? Learn more here.