David Pepper

🚨 🚨 

A huge ruling in Ohio yesterday: universal vouchers struck down as unconstitutional 

A 🧵 on some of the damning facts:

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1) Columbus City Schools receive only $2,800 per student (45,000 students) from the state, while the 7,500 voucher-funded private school students within its district are funded at more than $5,400 per student

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2) Cleveland/University Heights: $1,700 for each public school student vs. $5,500 per private/voucher student in the same community

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3) Richmond Heights: $1,529.09 (public student) vs. $6,750 per private/voucher student in the same community

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4) The Plaintiff districts lay out in painful ways the countless adverse impacts of lack of state funding—including cuts, layoffs, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate facilities and buses (and inability to make needed repairs), recruiting challenges,

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dated and shortage of textbooks, deficits, health of schools (lack of air conditioning, insect and rodents), and higher local levies

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5) in FY 2022, more than $300M in public funds was sent to 575 non-public chartered schools

- for 154 of those schools, EdChoice vouchers accounted for more than 75% of their enrolled students

- some of those schools received 60% of their funding from the state

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6) once a student is accepted to a participating non-public school, that student may apply for an EdChoice vouchers through the private school; the school, “not the student or parent, applies to the state for an EdChoice voucher.”

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7) if the student qualifies, “the State pays the voucher amount directly” to the private school; “EdChoice funding is paid directly from the state” to the schools (unlike past programs, it does not go to the family)

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8) the Ohio Department of Education “has no system in place to verify that the participating schools are following EdChoice’s regulations”

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9) public school funding and EdCHoice funding come from “the same line item within the State’s budget”

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10) a “significant portion” of voucher schools are religious schools—they are not subject to anti-discrimination laws, and many reserve the right to reject applicants because of behavioral/academic problems, sexual preference, religious or moral beliefs, and/or disability. 

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11) Together, the application process and the lack of any non-discrimination restrictions gives “a private religious school” “the discretion and ability to apply for and receive subsidies directly from the government, while at the same time

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discriminating against applicants on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria” 

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12) “it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the student as opposed to a system that benefits private schools”

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13) the statehouse “chose to expand their system of private school funding by about the same amount as Ohio’s public schools lost through the General Assembly’s failure to fully fund the FSFP”

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From all these and other facts, the court struck down the entire system. 

Just as courts did in Utah, Kentucky and South Carolina.  

Go here for more details on the decision:   https://davidpepper.substack.com/p/breaking-ohio-court-finds-universal?r=17y7a&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true