The threat is real. New Ohio General Assembly intent on expanding vouchers

January 7, 2025

Good Tuesday morning and Happy New Year!

Here’s the headline in this morning’s Columbus Dispatch:

“It’s official: Ohio has new GOP Speaker Matt Huffman, Senate President Rob McColley.”
New Ohio House speaker backs school choice, lowering the state’s income tax and limiting access to legal marijuana approved by voters in 2023

Read it here.

Huffman backs school choice and cutting the income tax, which means he wants to expand upon private school vouchers that are already siphoning $1 billion away from public schools while reducing the money available to state lawmakers to return to communities by cutting the income tax.

Let that sink in.

Lawmakers returned for the new two-year legislative session and their priorities are to continue to force local public school districts to go back to local property owners to pay for their local schools.

These lawmakers have until June 30 to pass a new two-year state budget, and if you want to understand their priorities look at where they spend their money.

It is not going to be public schools.

The state began experiencing some belt tightening last year when revenues came in lower than expected and federal one-time funding money dried up.

If they are true to their word, and when it comes to vouchers Huffman has never hidden his intentions, then private school parents and private school operators are going to win and local public schools are going to lose in the two-year budget.

One of our five counts in the lawsuit outlines how the private school voucher program known as EdChoice is unconstitutional because it exacerbates the over-reliance on local property taxes to pay for public schools. This is an issue the Ohio Supreme Court ruled on four times in the landmark DeRolph decision.

Huffman and McColley are not going to change their minds or their direction.

This is why we are suing, to have a fair hearing on this issue in the court of law.

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

If not, why not? Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio