When we let vouchers drain our schools, it hurts us all.
We have no choice: Lawmakers won’t listen: We have tried to explain how Vouchers Hurt Ohio, but legislative leaders are doubling down and expanding the private school voucher program.
Precedent: School districts sued the state in the ‘90s and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the ways the state funds public schools is unconstitutional. As a result, the state increased funding for schools, but is now redirecting more than $1 billion of that toward universal private school vouchers.
Vouchers On Trial In Ohio: A Franklin County judge has given the green light to holding a trial to determine the constitutionality of the private school voucher program.
The creation of one or more systems of uncommon schools is unconstitutional.
Funding for the EdChoice private school voucher program comes from the same line-item in the two-year state budget that funds public schools.
Each public tax dollar that goes to private schools is a dollar less for public schools. That’s unconstitutional.
Lawmakers have failed to adequately fund a thorough and efficient system. Private school vouchers force local school districts to raise local taxes through levies to make up the reduction in state dollars. That’s unconstitutional.
Private school vouchers make segregation in public schools worse.
Private schools take public tax dollars while applying litmus tests to pick and choose their students based on academics, athletics, disciplinary records, financial status, race, and religion. That’s unconstitutional.
No religious or other sect shall ever have any exclusive right to or control of any part of the school funds of the state. It’s there in black and white in the Ohio Constitution. More than 90 percent of private schools in Ohio are parochial with hundreds of millions of dollars going to sectarian schools. That’s unconstitutional.
Ohio citizens hold all power under the Ohio Constitution. When we are successful, state lawmakers will not be permitted to fund the harmful private school voucher program or any other separate, but unequal system of schools. The EdChoice private school voucher program is unconstitutional.