pnmadmin

This will be our last email of the year, but we will return with weekly updates beginning January 7, 2025.

Looking back at 2024, we witnessed how the private school voucher program is harming our public schools.

We learned the real choice and power in so-called school choice is in the hands of the private school operators who get to pick and choose their students based on income, athletic or academic talent, religion, race, and disability so the universal voucher program is but a myth.

It is a program for wealthy and religious families as the vast majority of families taking vouchers are just receiving a refund or a rebate for their tuition. They aren’t moving their children from public to religious schools. They were already enrolled.

We learned each dollar more for private schools is a dollar less for public schools so the $1 billion boondoggle for vouchers is literally robbing the public schools to pay the private school pirates.

We learned the pro-voucher gang, backed by billionaires like the Koch family and Betsy DeVos, know exactly what they are doing. This is a calculated plundering of the public treasury and they want the loot, but they don’t want to be held accountable for a single penny financially or a single student academically.

When some state lawmakers proposed financial and academic accountability, the pro-voucher crowd lobbied like there was no tomorrow to gut those oversight ideas from any legislation.

Yes, it was a tough year and you can already see the adverse impact on public schools as more and more local districts are forced to go to local voters with requests for levies or face cutting programs, teachers and staff.

We’ve seen the unfair impact of state mandates that cost public schools like the requirement to provide transportation for all private school students regardless of cost. Do you think the state reimburses public schools for this heavy toll? No way.

We realize this is hard to take, and this is why we are fighting back.

We’ve seen a group of suburban wealthy schools across the state rise up against vouchers and join our lawsuit.

We’ve seen all types of public schools from urban to rural to small town to suburban sign up because they understand we need to save our schools and protect our taxpayers from this ripoff.

We’ve also witnessed a rebellion against voucher expansion in other states with groups deciding the best tactic for them to challenge vouchers.

And we saw voters in three states reject vouchers and school choice when it was put on the ballot for a vote.

Our extreme lawmakers and Gov. DeWine would never put vouchers up for a vote in Ohio because they know it would be a loser for them.

And here is the best news of all for public schools and public school supporters.

Vouchers in Ohio go on trial in 2025.

We’ll repeat that: Vouchers in Ohio go on trial in 2025.

We’re looking forward to the new year.

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

If not, isn’t it time you joined. You don’t want to miss it. Learn how here.

We wish you a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year! See you again in 2025!

Good Tuesday morning,

The national media has taken a sniff of what is going on with vouchers in Ohio and they know something stinks.

Recently, The Nation published an extensive article entitled “The Existential Threat Facing Ohio’s Public School System.

You can read it here:

Some excerpts:

“Ohio now spends more than $970 million on private school voucher scholarships.”

The Nation quotes our lawsuit:

“Not only does this voucher program unconstitutionally usurp Ohio’s public tax dollars to subsidize private school tuitions, it does so by depleting Ohio’s foundation funding – the pool of money out of which the state funds Ohio’s public schools – otherwise available to already struggling school districts for the education of their students.”

It samples work from the Dayton Daily News:

“In Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Warren, Butler and Clark counties, for example, use of EdChoice vouchers increased by 313 percent, according to Dayton Daily News reporter Eileen McClory, but enrollment at schools that accept vouchers grew by only 3.7 percent.”

The Nation quotes Dan Heintz, a board member for Cleveland Heights-University Heights:

“The whole notion that people were using vouchers to escape failing public schools was nonsense, because the kids had never attended,” he said. “The only thing that they were escaping is a tuition bill.”

And Polly Taylor Gerken, a Toledo Public School board member:

“We had kids that would get put out because private schools don’t have to take a kid with a disability. They can discriminate based on race. They can discriminate based on disability. They can discriminate based on family composition. So it’s not about school choice because schools are the ones choosing kids.”

The Nation also quotes William Phillis, Executive Director for the Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding:

“There are school districts that have had to cut art, music, physical education—a lot of programming out of the public system because the money’s not available to fund those programs. And it’s not that we don’t have enough money. It’s that a lot of the money for public education is being siphoned out of the public school system and given to charters and vouchers.”

The Nation is watching. We are not alone. In state after state where universal vouchers are being pushed by puppet groups with strings attached to billionaires like Betsy DeVos and the Koch Family, public school supporters are organizing to fight back to protect their local schools.

Vouchers go on trial in 2025 in Franklin County before Judge Jaiza Page.

Is your district part of our lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

---

Stay updated by following us on social media!

Like us on Twitter and follow us on Facebook for daily news and updates.

Senate President Matt Huffman, with the help of Americans For Prosperity, is going to be House Speaker Matt Huffman beginning in January, 2025.

Huffman will undoubtedly serve four two-year terms from 2025 to 2033 as Speaker because he understands as well as anyone how to manipulate the levers of government in his favor.

Huffman is not only a champion for private school vouchers. He has taken the extraordinary step of funneling public tax dollars into private school construction and repair.

Voters don’t like vouchers. Voters don’t like their tax dollars going to private, most often, religious schools for brick and mortar buildings.

The majority of voters would like to see their tax dollars invested in their local public schools.

Huffman doesn’t listen to voters. Not now. Not in the foreseeable future.

He told the Columbus Dispatch at the Statehouse: “We can kind of do what we want.”

And he does.

We know we do not stand a chance in the legislature. We know the governor for the next two years, at least, will go along with Huffman on expanding universal vouchers.

So we are suing. We are challenging the constitutionality of the private school voucher program, known as EdChoice, on five counts, and each count has been accepted for trial by Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page.

Vouchers will go on trial in 2025.

The Ohio Constitution is clear on this issue.

Is your district part of our lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

We have built a strong and growing coalition of school districts as we challenge the constitutionality of private school vouchers in Ohio – urban, rural and yes, suburban.

Recently, the Canfield Board of Education in Mahoning County announced they are considering joining the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit. Read about it here.

“I believe Canfield should join the lawsuit,” said Canfield Board President Nader Atway. “After all, we are advocates for public education,” reported the Vindicator.

Atway told the Vindicator that 90 percent of Ohio’s public school students receive 75 percent of the state’s funding, while 10 percent of Ohio’s students attend private schools and receive 25 percent of the state’s funding.

Canfield would be the latest suburban school district to join VHO, following another Mahoning County district, Poland Local, that signed on to the lawsuit in October.

Upper Arlington near Columbus joined earlier this year, and other suburban districts across the state are seriously considering as our numbers grow.

Why are these suburban schools joining?

Because Vouchers Hurt suburban districts the same way they hurt urban and rural districts by robbing from the public and giving to private schools.

In Canfield, the number of students taking private school vouchers grew by 407 percent in the 2023-24 school year.

In Poland, the percentage grew by 813 percent, and in Upper Arlington, by 2,672 percent.

This is what universal voucher programs do to public schools. The families taking vouchers in places like Canfield, Poland, Upper Arlington and other suburban districts are not moving their children from public to private schools. They are already enrolled so they are getting a refund or rebate on their tuition.

The funding formula passed by Ohio lawmakers who support universal vouchers and Gov. Mike DeWine shortchanges all public schools.

And this is forcing more and more public schools to go back to voters with levies to make up the lost public dollars.

As a board member, joining the lawsuit is standing up for your local home and property owners, and more and more suburban district board members are facing this reality.

Is your district part of our lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Good Tuesday morning,

We’ll be brief today.

We appreciate your reading our weekly emails each Tuesday morning.

We hope they are full of good information and help you stay informed about our effort to sue the state over the unconstitutionality of the private school voucher program.

There are a few steps you can take in less than five minutes to help keep you connected and up-to-date on everything that is happening with vouchers in Ohio and across the nation.

You are already receiving our email, but you can find a great deal of information about our organization and lawsuit at our website: vouchershurtohio.com.

Are you following us on Facebook? If yes, great. If not, please like our page by going here.

You can also follow us on Twitter here.

And Instagram here.

That didn’t hurt, did it?

One last thing: Would you consider thinking of five friends, family members, co-workers or neighbors who you could forward this email to this morning, and ask them to go to our website and sign up for this weekly email?

It’s free, it’s full of information, and let them know, unlike so many emails, we will never ask them for money.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio