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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

Good Tuesday morning,

In May, attorneys for the state, and the Institute for Justice, an out-of-state intervenor in our EdChoice private school voucher lawsuit, bombed big time before the 10th District Court of Appeals.

Keith Neely, with the Institute, had a lump-in-the-throat exchange with Morgan Trau, a reporter for WEWS TV in Cleveland.

“The argument this morning, I think, went well for us,” Neely said after the hearing.

“You genuinely thought it went well?” I asked him, Trau reported.

“I do think that the argument went well on some of our claims…” Neely said. “Ultimately, I think we all recognize that this case is going to go to the Ohio Supreme Court one way or another.”

The appellate court judges will eventually rule on the case, but Neely expects the panel, all of them Democrats, to side with the schools.

He believes, eventually, the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court will rule in his favor, Trau reported.

Unable to make a constitutional case for vouchers, attorneys defending the problematic program are resorting to writing everything off as political.

Don’t believe it.

We have faith in the judicial system.

We won at the Common Pleas court level on the merits of our case. Judge Jaiza Page ruled that three of the counts we raised against EdChoice were correct and the program was unconstitutional.

We witnessed our attorneys argue, we believe, successfully before the 10th District Court of Appeals and we watched as the pro-voucher attorneys stumbled so badly that a Cleveland Plain Dealer headline stated: “Ohio’s school voucher house of cards is collapsing in court. The state’s defense is embarrassing.”

We believe we will be successful before the Ohio Supreme Court as well.

Our counts are all based on a strict, originalist reading of the Ohio Constitution, and the Ohio Supreme Court is composed of a majority of originalist justices. The language is so clear, plain, and in black and white that we believe Antonin Scalia would have agreed with us.

Our Ohio Supreme Court is not issuing rulings in a judicial vacuum. There is precedent in the Ohio Supreme Court on this issue already. The justices will have to take into consideration rulings by Judge Page and the 10th District Court of Appeals.

In addition, courts in state after state are ruling against vouchers. Interestingly, the constitutions in many of those states, often written around the same time as Ohio, are strikingly similar in their language protecting religious freedom and emphasizing the critical importance of the separation of church and state.

EdChoice vouchers are unpopular and growing in unpopularity. In 2024, pro-voucher groups asked voters in three states to approve voucher programs at the ballot box, including Kentucky where Donald Trump won overwhelmingly.

In all three states, voters said NO.

Voters have never passed a ballot initiative in any state to support vouchers.

Ohio State Supreme Court justices are elected, responsible to the people and to their oath of office to the Ohio Constitution.

They are not immune to the consensus of the people of our state. Our Steering Committee Chair, former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Brown, who has sat on the court, believes the justices will take very seriously their duty to abide by and follow the Ohio Constitution.

Mike Curtin, a former editor and associate publisher of the Columbus Dispatch, a former two-term Ohio House member who served on the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission, researched and reported a great piece on the language barring the use of public tax dollars to pay for private, mostly religious schools.

Curtin makes a compelling case for why the Ohio Supreme Court will find vouchers unconstitutional based on their originalist beliefs.

It is well worth your time to read here.

Anyone who tells you the Ohio Supreme Court will rule against us because of party affiliation hasn’t done their homework.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

Here’s a headline that probably took state Rep. Jamie Callender and state Sen. Jerry Cirino down a notch last week after both skipped an invitation to speak at the Mentor School Board meeting where vouchers were discussed.

Mentor schools are fighting for survival , so why won’t their state reps show up to explain themselves?…read the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

You remember Callender? He introduced the Public School Bully bill, beat his chest for a few days stating he was going to punish school districts that joined our lawsuit by withholding all their state funding and then promptly backed down after seeing the severe backlash to his mean-spirited and unconstitutional idea.

Callender and Cirino represent Mentor. So does state Rep. Dan Troy, who attended the meeting along with Dan Heintz, speaking on behalf of Vouchers Hurt Ohio.

Here’s how the Plain Dealer reported the situation: “The district is staring down serious budget pressure and has now twice gone to voters for a tax levy — and twice been turned down. A third attempt is being drafted. Mentor also is weighing whether to join more than 300 other school districts in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s private school voucher program.”

Chris Quinn, the Plain Dealer editor, said: “It’s a very bad look. I think they were looking for real information and (Cirino) blew him off. What kind of state senator does that?”

Quinn continued: “Mentor is one of the largest school districts in Cirino’s senate district. And the issue at hand — where hundreds of millions in public money goes — is one he has influenced as the head of the Senate finance committee.”

Lawmakers live in the Statehouse bubble where they pat one another on the back and quietly joke, “hey, what’s a little Constitution between friends?”

House Speaker Matt Huffman told the Columbus Dispatch, “we kind of do what we want.”

It’s a different story when they have to leave the safe Statehouse confines, and actually meet with the people of Ohio and look them in the eyes and try to explain the EdChoice voucher boondoggle.

It’s not easy justifying giving wealthy families a refund and a rebate and giving $1.7 billion in our public tax dollars to private, mostly religious schools – an idea a judge in Ohio has already ruled is unconstitutional on three counts.

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

If not, why isn’t your board, superintendent and treasurer standing up for public schools, public school children and taxpayers? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

We’re excited about tonight.

Mentor Public Schools, a suburban public school district in Lake County east of Cleveland, has invited local lawmakers and Vouchers Hurt Ohio to attend their board meeting for a discussion about EdChoice private school vouchers, and a possible vote to join our lawsuit.

Dan Heintz, a steering committee member for Vouchers Hurt Ohio, will speak to the Mentor board on behalf of our coalition.

Here is the question on everyone’s mind: Will he or won’t he?

He being state Rep. Jamie Callender, who happens to be one of two Ohio House members whose district contains Mentor Public Schools.

Callendar has not been heard from since his plan to bully school districts that joined our lawsuit backfired big time, and he suddenly was unavailable to answer questions from the press.

So will Callender accept the invitation?

And what about state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a voucher-backer who represents Mentor, whose daughter is on the Mentor board. Will he show up?

If they come, they will have to do a lot of explaining.

See Mentor, like a lot of districts, is facing financial struggles after the state shortchanged Ohio public schools $3 billion in the current two-year state budget, according to Policy Matters Ohio.

“Ohio’s legislature has repeatedly reduced the state share of public school funding, from a high of 47 percent in 1999 down to an estimated 35 percent in 2026 and 32.2 percent in 2027. This reduction in state share means that property tax revenue accounts for an increasingly large portion of Ohio public school funding,” states Policy Matters Ohio.

At the same time, state lawmakers like Callender and Cirino are sending $1.7 billion to EdChoice private school vouchers that are being used mostly by wealthy families to pay for their children who were often already enrolled in mostly religious schools.

Policy Matters Ohio correctly points out that when the state’s share of funding drops, school districts have one of two choices: make cuts in the district or ask local property owners to pay higher taxes.

Want to know why your property taxes are so high? Look to Columbus because they have been shortchanging your public schools for decades.

Voters in Mentor rejected a 4.9 mill operating levy last November and again earlier this month.

Tonight’s discussion comes as Mentor faces cuts amounting to $5.9 million.

Here is how Mentor describes itself to anyone interested in moving into the areas served by the district: Mentor, Mentor-On-The-Lake, Concord Township and Kirtland Hills.

“Our district operates seven elementary schools, two middle schools, one high school and one state-of-the-art specialized school for autism.”

Mentor offers more than 200 courses through their current Program of Studies, including college or honor level classes, AP, career technical education, art, music, electives, online and distance learning classes for about 6,600 students.

With the two failed levies, Mentor is looking at cutting staff, overtime and discretionary spending, reduction in travel and professional development, elimination of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), music, and art positions. Future cuts could include high school busing.

Cirino and Callender feign anger at public schools for paying $2 per pupil per year to join our lawsuit, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the $3 billion shortfall to public schools. They are really mad because they don’t like it when someone questions their authority or decisions. Cirino is the Senate Finance Committee chair so he has a lot of power in deciding where the legislature spends money.

We are suing the state to protect local public schools, public school children, and local taxpayers, and Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page agreed with us, ruling in June, 2025, that EdChoice vouchers are unconstitutional on three counts.

Our case is now before the 10th District Court of Appeals.

Any local school board that joins our lawsuit, and more are joining just about every day, is standing up for the future of public schools and for taxpayers.

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

If not, why isn’t your board, superintendent and treasurer standing up for local schools and local property taxpayers? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

Good Tuesday morning,

The 10th District Court of Appeals last week held a hearing before a three-judge panel on the state’s appeal of our winning lawsuit.

The state and intervenors were unable to make a constitutional argument because they don’t have one.

A headline from the state’s largest newspaper summed it up: Ohio’s School Voucher House of Cards is Collapsing in Court. The State’s Defense is Embarrassing!

Read the story here:

Ohio’s school voucher house of cards is collapsing in court. The state’s defense is embarrassing – cleveland.com

An excerpt from the story:

“The Attorney General’s appellate attorney argued that even though private schools can pick and choose who they admit, parents do have an equal choice: they’re free to apply to private schools. That’s why it is called school choice.”

“That’s hilarious,” said Cleveland.com | Plain Dealer Editor Chris Quinn. “That is the weakest argument I’ve ever heard. Well, you’re equal because you can ask for it. We’re not going to give it to you. But it’s equal because you’re allowed to petition for it. Imagine if everything worked that way.”

The attorney representing Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (why isn’t Yost standing up for public schools against vouchers?) had no real answer when Appellate Judge David Leland pressed him to explain why it was the private, often religious schools, that had all the power and the choice in deciding which children were accepted and which children were rejected under the EdChoice voucher program.

The attorney, Keith Neely, representing the out-of-state Institute for Justice didn’t have any better of a day defending EdChoice because the pro-voucher crowd doesn’t have a constitutional leg to stand on.

Here’s how Morgan Trau, from News 5 in Cleveland, reported a post-hearing interview with Neely.

“The argument this morning, I think, went well for us,” Neely said after the hearing.

“You genuinely thought it went well?” Trau asked him.

It didn’t.

See Trau’s story here: Ohio judges question why taxpayers fund private school tuition

Judge Leland wasn’t done.

“What’s the purpose, counselor, of having an admission policy where students who can afford private tuition to private schools are nonetheless subsidized by EdChoice voucher? What is the governmental purpose of that?”

Judge Leland continued: “Why are we subsidizing wealthy students who can afford to go to private school? Why are we paying for their tuition with tax dollars?”

Great questions and the pro-voucher crowd has no good answers because EdChoice is $1 billion boondoggle for private schools and a refund and rebate for wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools and that, at the end of the day, is indefensible.

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

If not, why not? School board members, superintendents and school treasurers need to stand up for their students, public schools, local taxpayers and their communities and join our lawsuit.

Learn how here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio

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