Excuses, not reasons

July 14, 2026

Good Tuesday morning,

We have a great group of grassroots advocates for public schools who work diligently in their home districts to convince their local school board members, superintendents, and treasurers to join our historic lawsuit.

To date, we have had more than 330 school districts involved, but there are more than 200 districts where local education leaders, like the proverbial ostrich, are sticking their heads deep into the sand.

If you talk to them, they have excuses, not reasons, for staying out of the lawsuit.

The big excuse is they won’t be able to pass a local levy if they join the lawsuit because a) voters in the community will be upset that they are spending $2 per pupil each year on our lawsuit to help pay for our legal costs and b) families taking vouchers in their community will vote against a levy.

Let’s examine these excuses for one moment to determine their degree of lameness.

The Ohio School Boards Association published a report recently on the 66 school levies that appeared across Ohio on the ballot on May 5. Voters approved 24 levies, and for the record, 16, or two of every three, have been part of our lawsuit.

As Dan Heintz, a school board member in Cleveland Heights University Heights, teacher in Chardon and a VHO Steering Committee member notes: “Our districts were twice as successful as others.”

So the idea that voters are rejecting levies because their district is part of our lawsuit is bunk. You can look at the OSBA report here.

Voters are rightly upset about rising property taxes, and we know the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of our anti-public school elected leaders in Columbus like Speaker Matt Huffman, then-Senate President Rob McColley, and finance chairs state Sen. Jerry Cirino and state Rep. Brian Stewart.

They are responsible for shortchanging public schools by $3 billion in the current state budget while funneling $1.7 billion to EdChoice private school vouchers for mostly wealthy families in mostly religious schools.

Decades of underfunding public schools have forced local districts to return again and again to voters for property tax increases. There is a huge connection.

But when public schools are losing $3 billion because lawmakers abandoned the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding plan, $2 per pupil is a small amount to pay to ask the courts to do the right thing for public schools and public school children.

Let’s look at the other flimsy excuse that local school officials use to go headfirst into the sand: voucher parents will vote against levies.

There is no proof that voucher parents support or oppose local levies based on whether a district has joined our lawsuit. But we know the vast majority of families taking vouchers never enrolled their children in public schools in the first place so they have already turned their back on public schools.

Maybe they would vote for levies to maintain their property values, but these parents are a big part of the problem, not the solution.

Let’s return to Dan Heintz for just a moment.

His district lost $27 million to EdChoice vouchers, and his district had to twice go back to voters asking for levies to keep the schools operating at an excellent level.

Dan went door-to-door as a board member in both levy campaigns, and he met face-to-face with voters who thanked him again and again for standing up to EdChoice vouchers.

Voters don’t like vouchers. Taxpayers are smart and wise to this scheme. Local educators, if they are communicating with their community, would be wise to stand up to vouchers because vouchers hurt Ohio, students, public schools, parents, educators, and, yes, taxpayers.

Enough excuses.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio