The Power of the Town Hall

October 6, 2026

Good Tuesday morning,

Inside the safe hallways of the Ohio Statehouse, where lawmakers like House Speaker Matt Huffman believe they can “pretty much do what (they) want,” the pro-voucher gang can start to believe their own propaganda.

Contrast that with what is happening all across Ohio where pro-public school folks, in community after community, are starting to realize how much Vouchers Hurt Ohio, their schools, their children, their neighborhoods, their taxpayers, and on and on.

A recent town hall in Southwestern City Schools near Columbus brought out a group of proactive citizens to denounce vouchers.

Last week, in LaBrae in Trumbull County in northeast Ohio, and in Chillicothe in Ross County in south Central Ohio, neighbors gathered to learn more about the $1 billion EdChoice harmful private school voucher program.

The media is also catching on.

Kaylee Remington, a reporter for Cleveland.com | The Plain Dealer wrote recently about a virtual town hall in Cleveland, where Madelaine Matej McQueen, a budget research for Policy Matters Ohio, told the gathered crowd that state lawmakers shortchanged public schools $2.75 billion in the current two-year state budget when they abandoned the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan.

“For example, under a fully implemented formula, Parma City Schools would have received roughly $9.7 million more, while the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s funding gap was estimated at $157 million,” wrote Remington.

Parents talked about how their special education children were suffering as public schools are shortchanged, and programs for their children are cut while wealthy parents whose children were already in private schools are getting a rebate with the EdChoice voucher.

Read the full story here.

The headline: Parents, educators say Ohio public schools funding challenges are hitting hard in local classrooms.

The next day, cleveland.com | The Plain Dealer revisited the issue in their daily podcast with a much harder-hitting headline: ‘You didn’t fool anybody:’ Ohio families see through legislative attack on public schools”

Read the story here.

“I love this hearing because it shows you didn’t fool anybody,” host and Editor Chris Quinn said of the lawmakers who are crippling public schools. “They’re on to you.”

Yes, we are on to you and more and more Ohioans are becoming “on to you.”

This is why we are suing and winning in the court of law and in the court of public opinion.

Is your district part of our historic lawsuit to protect public schools and taxpayers? Check here.

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio