Several provisions were removed from a Republican bill aimed at providing greater accountability for Ohio’s private schools in a substitute version passed by the committee, including eliminating funding transparency and standardized testing requirements.
State Reps. Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, and Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, introduced House Bill 407 earlier this year and Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, introduced a substitute bill with changes that passed during last week’s meeting of the Ohio House of Representatives’ Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education.
A provision that would have required private schools to submit an annual report to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce showing how state funds received from voucher grant programs are being used is eliminated from the bill. The bill would also require DEW to post reports on its website.
The replacement bill also removed a provision that would have required private schools to annually report the family income of any EdChoice scholarship recipient who also received tuition assistance from organizations that award DEW scholarships.
The changes would eliminate the requirement that voucher students take the same standardized tests that public school students take, which would leave the law unchanged. Private schools are required to test students on vouchers using a standardized test or alternative assessments.
The replacement bill included a provision requiring DEW to issue state report cards for private schools accepting scholarship recipients.
Ohio spent almost a billion dollars on private school grant programs for fiscal year 2024, the first full year with near-universal school vouchers. During this time, enrollment in private schools increased by 2% and enrollment in public schools decreased slightly.
“The danger of accepting public dollars is that over time there will be more and more demands from the public and from the schools that accept these dollars,” Sr. said.Rep. Tate Sean Patrick Brennan, D-Parma. “They are demanding accountability for these dollars, and rightly so.”
Manning said she introduced the bill because she and Seitz are “fiscal conservatives,” claiming that no organization had asked them to introduce the bill.
“If we have a superintendent who is making $500,000 in Upper Arlington schools, everyone knows it and we should know it,” Manning said. “If we have a school that receives $500,000 in a school that receives vouchers, they have every right to do so, but if we don’t know about it and parents don’t have that knowledge, that’s it to me. o. We need to know where the money is going.”
She said the purpose of the bill was to answer questions about where the money goes – whether it goes to students, classrooms or people on the school board.
Most parents had already decided where to send their child to school before the state’s budget passed last summer that allowed near-universal vouchers, said Chad Aldis, vice president of Ohio policy at the Fordham Institute, when asked whether students who receive vouchers were already attending the schools private.
“I think this year, given the number of new students entering school, we will be able to better determine who is entering (private schools),” he said.
After learning about the bill’s changes, Ohio Christian Education Network Executive Director Troy McIntosh moved from opposing the bill to becoming an interested party.
“We strongly believe that EdChoice best serves students when the state does not over-regulate providers,” he said. “What is particularly troubling is the bill’s requirement that DEW create a report card for EdChoice providers without knowing what it will look like.”
Despite the changes to the bill, Ohio Independent Schools Alliance Executive Director Dan Dodd said it will still create an administrative burden on schools.
“We would like to focus more of our attention and resources on children’s education and less time on documents submitted to DEW,” he said. “We do not believe that the education you receive in a public school district is the same as in a private school. We would reject the idea that comparing apples to a government website using testing data or other types of metrics is not the best way to determine whether a particular type of school or a particular type of education is best for your child. “
About half of the 46 member schools of the Ohio Alliance of Independent Schools participate in the state’s school voucher program — up from about one-third a few years ago Dodd said.
Tuition for Ohio Alliance of Independent Schools member schools ranges from $12,000 to $17,000 for elementary schools to more than $20,000 for high schools, he said.
“From what I understand, our schools largely do not mandate (EdChoice) enrollment for every family, and those higher-income families who receive less voucher money are probably more likely to not participate in the program.” Dodd said.
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