Things We Learned at NPE

April 8, 2025

Good Tuesday morning,

The Network for Public Education held its annual National Conference this past weekend in Columbus where hundreds of public school supporters from across the country gathered to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for current and future generations.

Across three days, there were keynote speakers and sessions, and the subject on everyone’s mind: how private school vouchers paid for by tax dollars are hurting our schools, children, families, communities, taxpayers, homeowners and more.

Our Winning in the Court of Law panelists from left to right: Dan Heintz, Eric Brown, Miriam Fair, Steve Dyer, Charlie Wilson, and William Phillis.

Here are some things we learned about harmful private school vouchers by talking to attendees at NPE:

Ohio is the Wild West of vouchers, one of the top three states in the country when it comes to the amount of tax dollars going to private school operators. Hundreds of millions of public tax dollars with zero accountability and zero oversight.

In the new two-year state budget, the universal voucher program will take $1.5 billion ($750 million each year) from public schools.

We learned how much it would cost for a constitutionally funded public school formula in Ohio to ensure all students receive a high quality education. The legislature and the governor would need to increase spending on public schools by about $1.5 billion over the two years or $750 million a year.

Yes, lawmakers and the governor have a source to fund public schools at a constitutional level. Their priorities, however, are private school operators and wealthy families.

One attendee said she was outraged to learn the funding for private school vouchers comes directly from the same line-item in the state budget that pays for public schools.

So a dollar more for vouchers is literally a dollar less available for public schools.

Public school supporters from other states held sessions to talk about the private school voucher problems back home and how they were fighting for public schools.

One session was called, “Colorado Voters Turned Down A School Choice “Voucher” Amendment.”

The message, according to one attendee, was how Republicans, Democrats and Independents in Colorado came together to defeat the ballot initiative sponsored by pro-voucher billionaires.

In particular, voters representing rural schools in Colorado understood how critical their public schools are to their communities, and they rejected siphoning away hundreds of millions of public tax dollars to private school vouchers.

We also learned the number of private school vouchers paid for with public tax dollars in Ohio will exceed 100,000 this year, and the vast majority are going to wealthy families whose children were already enrolled in private schools.

Another person at the conference said they learned we need to educate Ohioans about the harmful impact of private school vouchers and we shouldn’t sugarcoat the problem.

Vouchers Hurt Ohio held two sessions. The first, on Saturday, was about winning in the court of law, and the second, held on Sunday, outlined how we are winning in the court of public opinion.

Learn more about our lawsuit here.

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

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

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio