One of the Most Respected Voices Weighs In On Vouchers

May 20, 2025

Good Tuesday morning,

Tom Suddes was a respected long-time reporter at the Statehouse for the Cleveland Plain Dealer before becoming a professor at Ohio University.

He now writes a syndicated column that runs in publications across the state where he uses his experience as a keen observer of the Ohio General Assembly and his encyclopedic knowledge of Ohio politics, people and events to pound home his points.

Suddes recently wrote a column about the legislature turning their back on funding public schools at a constitutional level while channeling hundreds of millions of dollars to private school vouchers.

Read the column here.

Here are some excerpts from the column:

“Legislators have plenty of money for Ohio’s school voucher (“scholarship”) programs, which spend state tax dollars to help Ohio parents send their children to private schools,” writes Suddes.

“Voucher spending has exploded. The non-partisan Legislative Service Commission reports that Ohio – with the General Assembly’s say-so – spent $395 million for vouchers in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2020. Total voucher-spending skyrocketed to $961 million in the year that ended last June 30, a 143% increase,” writes Suddes.

“So: There’s enough money, likely ($1 billion-plus next year) to subsidize private schools, but not enough to achieve statewide fairness in funding public schools?” writes Suddes.

“Next time homeowners see yet more school-levy requests on their ballots (and they will), it likely won’t be their school boards’ fault. It’ll be the General Assembly’s.” Suddes writes.

It won’t be the school boards’ fault, but local educators will feel the heat from local homeowners and taxpayers because they will be forced to go back again and again with levies to make up for the lost dollars from the state.

This is why we say again and again that Vouchers Hurt Ohio, hurt parents, students, teachers, educators, taxpayers, and our communities.

The legislature is not going to change course. They are laser-focused on privatizing education and they do not care a whit about the damage to public schools.

This is why we are suing and challenging the constitutionality of the private school voucher program known as EdChoice.

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

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

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio