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The board of education for Upper Arlington City Schools voted last week to join our Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit.

This is a historic moment, as Upper Arlington board member Nidhi Satiani noted before voting yes.

Satiani pointed out that Upper Arlington was among a group of wealthy districts in Ohio that did not join the historic DeRolph case in the ‘90s that challenged the constitutionality of the public school funding program in Ohio and won.

Satiani said Upper Arlington needed to be on the right side of history.

Here is an impressive report on last week’s vote in Upper Arlington on The Spectrum, a public affairs program that airs on WCMH Channel 4 in Columbus that is hosted by Colleen Marshall.

Marshall points out that Lt. Gov. Jon Husted fed false and misleading information to the Upper Arlington school board prior to the vote in an attempt to stop the district from joining our lawsuit.

Later in the program, Marshall has two political strategists on to discuss the different viewpoints on the private school voucher program.

When Mehek Cooke tries to use the same lies and falsehoods that Husted attempted to peddle, Marshall shuts it down. This show airs on NBC and it is must see TV.

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted must be very worried.

This past week, he took the unprecedented step of trying to bully board members of Upper Arlington Local Schools by sending them a letter full of misinformation in an attempt to dissuade them from joining the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit.

Husted is not the first state official to try to bully local school districts. Senate President Matt Huffman worked with State Auditor Keith Faber to send threatening letters to school board treasurers.

Stop and think about why they are doing this?

Husted in his letter to Upper Arlington said the question of constitutionality for the voucher program had been settled 22 years ago. 

This is not true. If it had been settled, we would not have a court date. Husted knows vouchers are scheduled to go on trial on Nov. 4 of this year. 

Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page has accepted all five of our counts challenging the constitutionality of the harmful universal private school voucher program despite efforts by the Ohio Attorney General and out-of-state groups to have the case dismissed.

So if Husted is so sure of his voucher program – yes, in the letter he took credit for creating it as an Ohio House member – then why is he so worried?

Is it because Husted and the pro-voucher gang could lose in court, where the law and the Ohio Constitution matter?

This is why Husted went to such lengths to stretch the truth in his letter to the Upper Arlington board.

Husted’s letter said 130,000 students across Ohio are enrolled in the EdChoice program, and most do not have the means to send their children to a private school without the voucher. 

The vast majority of families taking vouchers this year, as the program grew from 24,000 to more than 90,000 students, are wealthy, and their children were already enrolled in private school so this is a refund and rebate scheme for the well-to-do.

In his desperation, Husted tried to say families with autistic children would be denied a voucher, but our lawsuit focuses solely on EdChoice so the vouchers for autism are not impacted.

Wrong again, Mr. Lt. Gov.

Finally, Husted told the board they would be wasting thousands of dollars by joining the lawsuit. 

Vouchers Hurt Ohio charges $2 per pupil per year so Upper Arlington would pay about $12,000 a year for their roughly 6,000 students to join the lawsuit.

This year, 348 students in the Upper Arlington school district are taking vouchers with high school vouchers worth up to $8,407 and K-8 vouchers worth $6,165. These are tax dollars going to private, most often religious schools.

We believe tax dollars should be invested in public schools, and we believe the Ohio Constitution affirms that idea.

Husted obviously isn’t doing the math.

But this is what bullies do. We won’t be bullied. We aren’t going away. 

Vouchers go on trial in November.

Is your district part of the lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

It’s true. Universal vouchers are out of control with zero academic or financial accountability, and with a disastrous impact upon local public school districts.

How bad?

Fourteen school districts in Ohio have had more than a 2000 percent increase in the number of students receiving vouchers during this first year of universal vouchers. A large number of the schools with these massive increases are suburban, considered wealthy and fare among the best academically in the state.

Fairbanks Local saw a 2025.0% increase. Nordonia Hills City, 2055.0%. Aurora City saw a 2500.0% increase in the number of students receiving vouchers.

See the 14 school districts and their increases here.

Andy Wilson, a member of the Vouchers Hurt Ohio steering committee and a former Fairborn City Schools board member, found this information in data maintained by the new Ohio Department of Education and Workforce Development.

Andy didn’t stop there.

He also found 28 schools with voucher increases of 1000 and 1999 percent and the trend continues with most being wealthy, suburban districts.

See the 28 here.

And there are 32 districts with an increase of voucher students between 500 and 999 percent.

The Ohio DEWD is accepting applications for vouchers for this year until the end of this month so we won’t have final numbers or financial figures until the 2024-24 school year.

We do know the vast majority of schools accepting EdChoice vouchers are religious and most students were already enrolled in private schools.

The aim of this program is clear. Public tax dollars provide rebates and refunds for families, mostly wealthy, to continue to attend private, religious schools.

Ohio is creating a separate and unequal system of schools right now. This is not a drill. And it is only going to get worse.

Is your district part of our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of private school vouchers? Check here.

If not, why not? Learn how to join here..

The media coverage of the universal private school voucher plan has exposed the inherent problems in the program.

In the past months, we have learned…

voucher spending may exceed $1 billion this year…

the vast majority of the 91,000 plus voucher recipients are wealthy families whose children are already enrolled in private schools…

private schools have pressured parents into applying for vouchers, sometimes against their will…

while raising tuition to maximize revenues from tax dollars and families.

State Sen. President Matt Huffman’s hometown newspaper, the Lima News, has also written extensively about the harmful impact of vouchers on public schools in northwest Ohio so it’s hard to believe Huffman, the voucher expansion’s biggest cheerleader, doesn’t know what is going on.

In a recent Lima News story, the newspapers explained that 585 students used vouchers this year, a 350 percent increase compared to 130 last year while Delphos Schools gained 21 students over the previous year. Read the story here.

Another school district in Huffman’s area, Ottawa-Glandorf, saw the number of students taking vouchers rise from 30 last year to 251 this year.

The newspaper points out millionaires are eligible for $650 for K-8 child and $950 for each high school child enrolled in a private school.

Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School in Ottawa has “encouraged” parents to apply for the scholarship, according to the Lima News.

“Who can’t use an extra $600 in their pocket,” Connie Niese, Sts. Peter and Paul’s principle told the newspaper. “Maybe you can have an extra vacation or maybe you can use it to purchase something that you’ve been looking forward to or making some improvements on your house.”

Yes, she said it. 

Is your district part of our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of private school vouchers? Check here.

If not, why not? Learn how to join here..

Vouchers go on trial in November.

What do you get when you combine an exploding universal voucher program with declining state tax revenues?

We’re about to find out in Ohio just as Arizonans found out recently when an out-of-control voucher expansion blew up their state budget.

The universal voucher program in Ohio is unique because there is no cap on spending.

Anyone who applies for a private school voucher, even millionaires and billionaires, receives at least a partial refund and rebate for tuition.

The rules for reporting family income are very loose. High school vouchers are worth $8,407 per student and K-8 are worth $6,165 per student.

As of March, there were more than 91,000 applications for private school vouchers for the 2023-24 school year, up from 24,323 in the 2022-23 school year, and the deadline for applying is June 30.

The vast majority of the students taking vouchers were already enrolled in private schools.

At the same time the voucher program is exploding, the state’s tax collections have come in under projections for four of the last five months.

According to the Toledo Blade, Ohio’s tax collections have not been in the black since November.

Unlike the federal government, Ohio lawmakers and our governor must balance the budget.

The state has collected $446.7 million less in taxes than projected at the same time vouchers are going to cost the state as much as $1 billion.

In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs had a practical idea to rein in the skyrocketing costs of the private school voucher program that was busting the state’s budget. Gov. Hobbs proposed requiring students to attend public school for 100 days before becoming eligible for a voucher.

Do you think that idea has a chance in Ohio to curb spending?

The money for vouchers comes from the same line-item in the budget that pays for public schools so a dollar more for vouchers is a dollar less available for public schools.

When it comes time to balance the budget in June, what will lawmakers do?

This is why we are suing the state, challenging the constitutionality of the private school voucher program.

Is your district part of the lawsuit? Check here.

If not, why not? Learn how to join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio