Today, Our Day in Court

May 12, 2026

Good Tuesday morning,

Our lawsuit challenging the harmful EdChoice private school voucher program that is siphoning away $1.7 billion from public schools to fund a separate and unequal system of mostly private schools for wealthy parents goes on trial today in the 10th District Court of Appeals in Columbus.

The state appealed after losing the case when Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page ruled last June that EdChoice is unconstitutional on three counts:

1. Lawmakers shall create a single system of common schools for the common good open to all children. Vouchers are open only to those students whose families can afford to pay mostly religious schools, a tuition charge on top of the voucher, and those religious schools choose who gets in based on wealth, religion, race, disabilities, etc.
2. Lawmakers have failed to fund public schools at a constitutional level. Policy Matters Ohio reports lawmakers shortchanged public schools $3 billion in the current two-year state budget. Judge Page noted lawmakers can’t pay for private vouchers out of the same line item in the budget that underfunds public education.
3. No religious sect or other sect shall ever have exclusive right to or control of any part of the school funds of the state. It’s there in black and white in the Ohio Constitution. More than 90 percent of the private schools receiving the $1.7 billion are religious.

The state and intervenors like the Koch family-backed Institute for Justice do not have a constitutional leg to stand on.

They are grasping at a U.S. Supreme Court decision made a long time ago that looked at the small voucher program in Cleveland, but their lawyers are way off the mark.

Judge Page debunked their argument in her ruling.

Judge Page noted the Goff ruling noted the Cleveland voucher program required that: (1) participating schools not discriminate on the basis of religion; (2) public schools in a school district adjacent to the covered district be allowed to participate; (3) participating adjacent public schools receive funding above the full per-pupil amount; and (4) all participating schools, whether public or private, must accept students in accordance with rules and procedures established by the state superintendent.

EdChoice has no such rule requiring that participating schools do not discriminate on the basis of religion, nor that participating schools must accept students in accordance with rules and procedures established by the state.

There are no rules for the EdChoice private schools. No fiscal or financial accountability either.

The U.S. Supreme Court, as Judge Page pointed out, “cautioned that their success should not come at the expense of public education, nor should the state be allowed to finance a system of nonpublic schools.”

Judge Page wrote: “From this language, the Court concludes that the Goff court foresaw a renewed challenge to a larger scholarship or voucher program like EdChoice as an unconstitutional state supported system of private schools. Goff warned that a system that does not create but supports nonpublic schools in a way that jeopardizes the thoroughness and efficiency of the State’s system of public schools violates Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution.”

Judge Page gets it. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling warned that a universal voucher program with no income limits that takes billions of dollars away from underfunded, shortchanged public schools and is a threat to the system of common public schools in Ohio would be unconstitutional. That’s what we have now, and that’s why the Ed Choice private school voucher scheme is unconstitutional.

So when you hear lawyers for the state cite Goff it is merely guff.

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

If not, why not. Join here.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio