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A bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers wants to know how private schools are using taxpayer dollars, but GOP leaders are unlikely to demand more transparency from the EdChoice program.
Over the past few years, Ohio leaders have given billions of taxpayer dollars to nonpublic schools that exploit the EdChoice voucher program. Thanks to it, every family, regardless of income level, can get aid with paying tuition fees at a private school.
EdChoice received $2.5 billion in the last budget. However, it is unclear where this money actually goes.
Ohio Senate Bill 443
State Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township, Sen. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, and Rep. Justin Pizzulli, R-Scioto County, have introduced SB 433, which would dramatically boost transparency in the program.
Among more than a dozen provisions, the bill would include an audit of how state dollars are spent in both the EdChoice scholarship programs and the pilot project, create academic performance report cards and require students to take the same final exams that public schools require.
“If you take state dollars, you have to show us results, statistics and data,” Blessing said.
Schools will be required to conduct criminal background checks on their employees.
For admission, schools must describe in detail their criteria and admissions criteria, as well as inform them where the novel student is from.
Each school would have to submit its weekly attendance records and also report tuition and fees charged by the school, including a five-year trend in the cost of those fees.
They will be required to report the number of students on vouchers who have a physical, intellectual or learning disability, who are English Language Learners (ELS) and who do not have housing. Public schools have an obligation to educate all children, and private schools can choose, Blessing added.
Like society, EdChoice schools would also be required to report disciplinary actions, dropout and graduation rates.
“Restore oversight and accountability of the taxes spent on education in Ohio,” Smith said.
When vouchers were first introduced in the 1990s, their purpose was simply to aid students with intellectual disabilities in Cleveland.
At the time, it cost $0.44 a year, while it now costs Ohioans $205 a year, Smith explained.
In defense of public schools
While EdChoice received $2.5 billion, K-12 public schools were underfunded by nearly $3 billion, according to the nonpartisan research group Policy Matters Ohio.
“We already feel very stretched and thin,” said Karen Rego, a teacher in Cleveland Heights. “The loss of the employees we lost this year and the possibility of losing more next year is a really hard pill to swallow.”
The Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District is facing $7 million in cuts as state and federal governments cut expected funding.
While Rego is forced to watch her school struggle, she sees the academy across the street receiving aid.
“We have a very large number of private schools in our community, so we’ve been dealing with vouchers for years and we’ve been fighting it for years, actually for decades,” Rego said.
However, unlike public schools, private schools and non-public charter schools do not have to disclose what they do with the money.
“We are asking for honesty,” Pizzulli said.
Some of the biggest supporters of public schools are the schools themselves and rural lawmakers.
“Many of us barely know what vouchers are because we simply don’t have private schools,” Pizzulli said.
He said it covers “one of the poorest corners of the state,” pointing out that he represents the Appalachian areas of Ohio.
“We in rural Ohio are frustrated with the way schools are funded,” he said. “We see that our taxes support a voucher system that largely benefits areas with access to private schools, while communities like mine receive little or no practical benefit because such options do not exist.”
His community needs to get the “leftover” school desks from the prison, he said.
“The state taxes disenfranchised groups of Ohioans who receive no benefits,” Pizzulli said.
He is willing to aid low-income students and families from other areas who are looking for better educational opportunities, but that is not the agenda, the Republican said.
“What frustrates us is that our taxpayers’ money is increasingly going to families who already had the means to afford private lessons,” he continued.
Our research has shown for yearsthat the extensive majority of families using vouchers have always sent their children to these schools.
In defense of EdChoice
Some Republican leaders, like Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, have consistently opposed this type of disclosure, arguing that it provides transparency in other ways.
“The best example of responsibility is whether a parent or family voluntarily takes their child to that school,” Huffman said, adding that parents are not forced to send their children there.
He also raised concerns about violating the rights of a private entity, such as an entrepreneur.
“We need to make sure that the privacy of people, the children and families who attend the school and those who run the school – all of that – will be intact,” he said.
As for rural Ohioans who pay for schools they don’t have, Huffman said it’s part of life.
“Many people pay taxes for things that do not directly benefit them,” the speaker said. “If you’ve never had kids and they’re not going to go to school, you might say, ‘Well, what’s the benefit to me?’” “If I don’t use the parks, why should I pay the parks tax?”
Keith Neely of the Institute for Justice said EdChoice could be a lifeline for a family running out of options.
“(Without EdChoice, families) will be forced to send their children to public schools that might not suit them,” Neely said.
More than 300 public school districts in Ohio are suing EdChoice.
Last summer, a trial judge ruled the program unconstitutional. The state appealed most of the ruling, while the schools deny the only charge brought against them. Schools complain that the voucher program causes “segregation” in schools, but a judge said there was no evidence of that.
The state and a coalition of families using private school vouchers are resisting, arguing that education funding does not come from the same pool of money.
“There is no inherent link between EdChoice funding and public school funding,” said Deputy General Counsel Stephen Carney.
The voucher program remains in effect while the legal proceedings continue.
Huffman questioned why lawmakers introduced a gigantic bill so tardy in the General Assembly.
“If it has recently been introduced in the Senate, one of the things I question is whether the senators introducing it are taking it seriously if they have waited until now to introduce it,” Huffman said, seemingly ignoring the fact that during his tenure he has consistently passed resulting bills at the last possible moment before the end of the General Assembly.
However, EdChoice transparency efforts have been proposed and stalled for years.
“I really think the thinking about this will change in the coming years,” Blessing said.
Lawmakers acknowledge it likely won’t be passed this year, but the proposal is a way to start the conversation.
Blessing recalled how voters in Kentucky rejected a measure that would have allowed public dollars to be used for vouchers. Ohio is not immune to the same fate.
“If there’s a ballot initiative or something goes wrong, I don’t think it’s going to end up being, ‘Well, a little fix here, a little fix there,’” Blessing said. “I think this would be the potential end of the scholarship system.”
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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