Back to school

August 27, 2025

Good Tuesday morning,

In the past weeks, all across the state, students returned to classrooms that are woefully underfunded because anti-public school, pro-voucher lawmakers have shifted $1.5 billion to private schools.

To add pain to injury, public schools are spending hundreds of millions of dollars transporting private school students at the expense of taking care of their own students.

Once upon a time, not too long ago, state lawmakers and education funding experts came together to develop a constitutional funding formula for public schools.

It was called the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan, and lawmakers agreed to phase it in over six years.

This year, however, the House Speaker, the state’s main cheerleader for harmful private school vouchers, said Cupp Patterson was “unsustainable,” and a “fantasy.”

So they tossed the Fair School Funding Plan on the scrapheap of history, and doubled down on providing even more tax dollars to private schools.

This irresponsible behavior was not lost on Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page, who ruled on June 24 that the EdChoice private school voucher scheme is unconstitutional on three counts.

Judge Page wrote, under Count Two, Vouchers Hurt Ohio alleges the state’s “failure to adequately fund public schooling by not fully funding the Fair School Funding Plan while simultaneously spending large sums on the EdChoice program has resulted in a system of common schools that is not thorough and efficient.”

The Ohio Constitution is very clear on this issue. Lawmakers shall create a single system of common schools for the common good and they are required to fund that system.

Judge Page later wrote…Schools “cannot keep necessary positions filled (teachers and other critical staff), repair or replace critical building infrastructure, provide students with updated and quality learning materials, provide students with adequate and reliable transportation nor can they construct additional necessary facilities.”

The state and pro-voucher intervenors appealed Judge Page’s decision, but they haven’t addressed the huge constitutional questions she raised.

As students return to school, we continue to work to stop this existential threat to public education.

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

If not, why not? Learn how to join here. Sincerely, Vouchers Hurt Ohio