Innovation Ohio

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Lame Duck Season Starts

Lame Duck: The perfect time to sign up for our Statehouse Update Newsletter

Today, the Statehouse will see a number of hearings as the 133rd General Assembly kicks off the first week of its always-interesting Lame Duck session. Lame Duck is a colloquial name for the period of time between the general election and the end of the year when a new legislative term starts.

For this two month stretch, term-limited lawmakers and those who lost their bids for reelection are effectively “lame ducks,” on the way out the door. It’s often a time when lawmakers rush to pass priority bills before time runs out at the end of a term, but also is when we tend to see some of the most extreme proposals enacted. Recent examples include restrictions on local minimum wage increases and the 6-week abortion ban.

Lame Duck requires close watch by statehouse activists.

Most of what is on the agenda this week is uncontroversial, as committees work to clear the deck of bills that have been introduced but not yet heard in committee.

Two proposals up for hearings, however, are priorities for legislative leadership and merit careful monitoring: a school funding overhaul in the House Finance Committee and a Senate bill to repeal House Bill 6, the bailout of failing nuclear plants, the 2019 passage of which is the subject of an FBI bribery investigation.

After this week, many anticipate more controversial bills will begin moving. One concern we hear from allies is that conservative lawmakers will enact a full abortion ban in the form of a “trigger law” — one that only takes effect or becomes “triggered” by a ruling of the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. In that case, the Ohio law would then take effect.

We will continue to send weekly updates about what’s on the Lame Duck agenda.

New Legislation This Week

The following bills were introduced since our last update. You can keep an eye on all the bills we’re tracking here.

House Bill 777 (Lang, Perales) – Alcohol Sales – to reinstate the authorized hours of operation for liquor permit premises that existed prior to the state of emergency declared in response to COVID-19 and to declare an emergency.

House Bill 783 (A. Miller) – Election Intimidation – to prohibit any person from intimidating, threatening, or coercing a person for the purpose of interfering with that person’s right to vote in an election.

House Bill 784 (Adams, Carruthers) – Law Enforcement – to increase penalties for certain assault, vandalism, and riot offenses, to allow peace officers to bring civil suits against persons participating in a riot, and to prohibit bias-motivated intimidation of first responders.

Senate Bill 374 (Obhof, Peterson) – Alcohol Sales – to reinstate the authorized hours of operation for liquor permit premises that existed prior to the state of emergency declared in response to COVID-19 and to declare an emergency.

Senate Bill 375 (Hoagland, Schafer) – County Fairs – to void the Director of Health’s July 30th order regarding county fairs and to declare an emergency.

Statehouse Meetings & Events

Tuesday, November 10

10:00 am – Senate Energy and Public Utilities – Informal hearing on HB772 (HB6 Repeal) and 2nd hearing (proponent) on SB346 (HB6 Repeal). Senate Finance Hearing Room or watch online. 

10:00 am – House Finance – 7th hearing (invited testimony, possible substitute) on HB305 (School Funding). Statehouse Room 313 or watch online.  

11:00 am – House State & Local Government – 4th hearing (all testimony, possible amendments & vote) on HB621 (Pandemic Business Closures). Statehouse Room 116 or watch online.  

12:30 pm – House Health – 1st hearing (sponsor) on HB316 (firearm “red flag” orders). Statehouse Room 313 or watch online.  

12:30 pm – House Criminal Justice – 1st hearing (sponsor) on SB3 (Drug Sentencing). Statehouse Room 121 or watch online. 

Get these updates weekly in your inbox when lawmakers are in session. Sign up now for Statehouse Update.

Statehouse Preview: Fairness Act Supporters Get Key Hearing

This week, lawmakers will hear from supporters of the House version of the Ohio Fairness Act (HB369). The bill would prohibit discrimination in housing and employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Hundreds of Ohioans are expected to submit in-person or written testimony on Tuesday in which they will lawmakers to end Ohio’s system of legal discrimination once and for all. 

Take one minute to use our advocacy tools to send a letter to your lawmakers in support of the Ohio Fairness Act.


House committees will also hear from sponsors of two new pro-gun proposals this week. House Bill 425, which eliminates the duty to inform law enforcement officials of the presence of a concealed weapon and House Bill 178, which would effectively allow concealed weapons anywhere without a permit will receive sponsor testimony. 

New Legislation
Below is one bill that was introduced last week that we’ll be keeping an eye on in the coming months:


SB 262 (Williams) – Charter/Voucher Funding – to require the direct payment of state funding to community schools and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics schools; to require the direct payment of K-12 state scholarships; and to make an appropriation.

>> You can monitor the status of all the bills we are watching here.

Ohio’s School Voucher Explosion and 5 Potential Solutions

Well, that was fast. 

In late November, we at Innovation Ohio noticed there was a startling increase in the amount of taxpayer money being transferred from school districts to private, mostly religious schools.

In fact, it was an explosion — $47 million since the end of last school year and $57 million between November 2018 and November 2019 – a more than 20%, November-to-November increase.

We also noticed that many school districts losing sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to private schools this school year lost zero dollars to them only two years ago.

Our post led to a series of newspaper and other media reports demonstrating the issue throughout the state. It even forced Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to say that his top legislative priority this year is to fix the voucher issue.

But what is this voucher issue, and why has it exploded so recently?

The answer is simple: the state report card and money. 

Let’s take each issue in turn.

Problem 1 – The State’s Report Card

While there are several voucher programs in Ohio (for more detail on them, check out our report from a couple of years ago), the one that’s exploded is the EdChoice voucher transfer program. This program has been around since 2005 and it takes state money originally designated for a traditional, public school district and instead transfers that money to a private, most often religious school.

Which Ohio school districts are eligible for the EdChoice voucher program? Well, it’s complicated. 

Generally, the worst-performing districts in the state on the report card, as well as any child who would attend a building that has received bad marks on the state report card would be eligible for the EdChoice voucher program. Thus, a student who would otherwise attend a poor-performing school building in a well-performing school district would be eligible to receive a public subsidy to attend a private, most often religious school.

Ten years ago, the group of schools and districts eligible for EdChoice were mostly concentrated in Ohio’s urban areas, with only about 30 or so of Ohio’s 613 districts losing at least some of their state funding to private, parochial schools.

But then the state started to use Common Core tests — tests that ended up being changed several times over the course of a few years.

Common Core tests were changed several times over the course of only a few years, prompting the legislature to provide a “safe harbor” period allowing school districts to adjust to the evolving changes.

The “safe harbor” was implemented to prevent mass exodus via the voucher program of students headed to private schools on taxpayer subsidies meant for public school districts due to test changes and not actual student performance.

That safe harbor provision ended last school year, yet district and building grades in Ohio have remained artificially low. 

A bar chart illustrating how letter grades per school district have declined erratically during the period of time where Common Core was being changed year-to-year (2012-2019)
Letter grades per district have declined erratically during the period of time where Common Core was being changed year-to-year.

As the data trends suggest, poor letter grades on the state’s report card are much more likely today than they were under previous report card iterations.

In addition, as of the 2019 state budget, if districts received failing grades in only one of several report card categories, they’re eligible to lose state funding to vouchers. 

The grades earned need only be failing in one of the categories for 2 of 3 years between the 2014-2015, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 school years. 

Yes, you read that correctly. 

The years in question are nonconsecutive. That is the state’s policy.

Under the new measurements, there are now more than 1,200 school buildings that will qualify for vouchers next year, and 512 of 613 Ohio school districts will lose state funding to the EdChoice voucher.

As the data trends suggest, poor letter grades on the state’s report card are much more likely today than they were under previous report card iterations.

In addition, as of the 2019 state budget, if districts received failing grades in only one of several report card categories, they’re eligible to lose state funding to vouchers.

The grades earned need only be failing in one of the categories for 2 of 3 years between the 2014-2015, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 school years.

Yes, you read that correctly. The years in question are nonconsecutive.

That is the state’s policy.

Under the new measurements, there are now more than 1,200 school buildings that will qualify for vouchers next year, and 512 of 613 Ohio school districts will lose state funding to the EdChoice voucher.

Under the new measurements, there are now more than 1,200 school buildings that will qualify for vouchers next year, and 512 of 613 Ohio school districts will lose state funding to the EdChoice voucher.

Problem #2 – Way more money diverted to vouchers

In addition to expanding the universe of eligible voucher students, state lawmakers have steadily increased the amount of taxpayer money diverted into the voucher program, away from public schools for each voucher recipient. 

Today, for high school students, it is the same amount of money per pupil as the base aid amount the state’s school funding formula provides for a public school student. That amount used to be far less – a key point for why the U.S. Supreme Court determined Ohio’s voucher system to be constitutional in 2002.

Now that voucher funding per pupil is on par with public school funding for high schools (it’s about $1,500 less for elementary school students), more private schools are opening their doors to these public subsidies, further draining funds from our public school districts.

 It used to be that, generally, the dollar amount of vouchers were worth less than those students would have received to attend the local public school district. 

Now that the voucher transfer is so much more, in many more instances, the amount going to the voucher is actually greater than the amount of funding the state would have sent the district for the same student. Thus, significantly more local revenue is subsidizing the state funding loss – along the lines of what has been happening with charter schools for years.

These changes are forcing districts to go to the ballot for new money levies more frequently and at higher levels.

Through state policymaking, pro-voucher proponents have significantly expanded the universe of potential voucher recipients to encompass nearly 1/3 of all school buildings in the state. 

By increasing the funding that follows students who opt to take advantage of the voucher program, the state has hugely expanded the universe of potential schools willing to accept vouchers for these students.

The result? Vouchers have exploded.

A bar chart showing the drastic increase in voucher-eligible school buildings in Ohio over the 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 school years. The number has increased from around 200 in 18-19 to around 1200 in 20-21.
The number of school buildings in Ohio whose students are eligible for the EdChoice voucher program has exploded this year.

Now what?

Many public school advocates are effectively pushing back against the expansion of vouchers.

One event will be held next week in Toledo. I will participate in this event as Innovation Ohio’s Education Policy Fellow.

These and other events have forced the Speaker’s hand.

There are many ways to fix this. Here are a few:

  1. Limit the vouchers to only students who have been enrolled in the school building or district that’s eligible for the voucher for more than 180 days. It’s tough to “fail” a student if that student never attends the district or building

  2. In order to be designated a voucher-eligible school or district, you have to receive failing grades in at least 2 (rather than 1) report card categories for three consecutive years. Additionally, limit it to buildings in districts with overall report card grades of C or below. This is the standard for charter school closure. It shouldn’t be easier to get a voucher than it is to close ECOT.

  3. Reduce the amount of funding for the vouchers to something approaching the ratio of the original program considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ohio is inviting legal challenges by granting private, mostly religious schools essentially the same base aid amount as a public school student, especially given that the state already pays to bus many of these students to the private school.

  4. Add financial accountability to the taxpayer dollars going to the private, mostly religious schools. One of the real issues with now more than $330 million going to private schools is none of that money is audited. We have no idea how it’s being spent. One of the checks we had on the privately run, publicly funded charter school sector was the public auditing of the money they received, which led to the uncovering of many incidents of taxpayer money being misspent.

  5. Directly fund all EdChoice voucher students from the state. The state already does this through the EdChoice expansion program (where any family of 4 making about $100,000 or less can receive a voucher, regardless of school performance, but that’s another story). Eliminating the deduction will also all but eliminate the local revenue-subsidizing-vouchers problem, and it will reduce the angst many district leaders have when they see on their state funding reports that they are slated to receive a certain level of funding, but get much less because the vouchers take a bunch off the top.

These are just a few of the ways to respond to this crisis that’s hammering many districts.

Innovation Ohio’s New Report Finds Exploding Voucher Payments, Return to Lax Oversight of Charters in Ohio Budget

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 25, 2019
Contact: Michael McGovern, mcgovern@innovationohio.org
 
Columbus, OH – A report from Innovation Ohio focused on the state’s new budget finds a huge increase in spending on voucher payments to private schools and a return to lax, pre-ECOT scandal charter school oversight. This is the latest budgetary explosion for a voucher program that has increased more than 600% since 2011.
 
“Given the ECOT scandal, it is astounding that statehouse leaders would loosen rules around failing charter schools that suck money out of Ohio public school classrooms,” said Innovation Ohio Education Fellow and report author Stephen Dyer. “What we need is closer scrutiny and reigning in these payments to private schools.” 
 
The report highlights four key giveaway to poor-performing, privately run schools: 
1. Weakening rules to automatically close failing charter schools
2. Lowering standards for dropout recovery schools
3. Weakening oversight of charter school sponsors, many of whom are for-profit companies
4. A huge increase in public dollars flowing to private schools via vouchers
The voucher expansion alone could cost Ohio public school districts another $73 million over two years, on top of an already ballooning $389 million per year private school voucher program.
Over the last several years, Innovation Ohio has been leading the fight to expose Ohio’s failing charter school system and sounding the alarm bells around expanding voucher programs. 
 
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What’s in DeWine’s K-12 Budget?

Like much of Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget, his K-12 proposals are underwhelming. No New Base Funding Schools see no new change to the school funding formula in the DeWine proposal, as he has left the heavy lifting to State Reps. Cupp and Patterson, who next week will release the most highly-anticipated school funding reform plan in a decade. As we prepare for next week’s proposal, it’s important to have some historical context. When adjusted for inflation, Gov. Kasich’s last budget left schools about $900 million short of what they received in the recession budget 10 years ago. If the state were to base school funding on the actual cost of providing a high-quality education to students, Ohio would currently be about $1.7 billion short, according to figures from the last serious attempt to reform its school funding formula. Thus, any serious new funding formula will require significant new revenue.  $300 million a year more for wraparound services This money would bring more mental health and other services to poor students, providing every district with at least $25,000, even if the district has only a handful of poor students, up to about $250 a student, which could make a real difference. There would be cause for concern if this becomes a substitute for adequately funding schools. Our students deserve the investment the state simply hasn’t made for 30 years. And every kid deserves that commitment. Even with $300 million more in the 2020-2021 school year, adjusted for inflation, districts would remain several hundred million dollars short of what they received a decade ago during the Great Recession. $30 million for high performing charter schools While Ohio absolutely should begin to differentiate between low and high-performing charter schools, creating a market based on quality rather than enrollment, DeWine is doing so by tapping into the state’s lottery fund, forcing cuts in lottery money headed to traditional public districts. At the end of this two-year budget, nearly $50 million will be headed to charters from the Lottery, which was supposed to go strictly to school districts. We need to be creating a charter school market that rewards success. But taking it out of funds voters created for school districts seems counterproductive. There is already $16.6 million in the current state budget for high-performing charters to receive capital funding. Not even 25 percent of that amount has been spent because so few charters meet the criteria. Adding $30 million which is limited to the few high performing schools operated in Ohio in hope that more will materialize prevents that money from going to kids in our traditional public school districts. Another big increase for the voucher program DeWine continues the misguided increases to the EdChoice, income-based voucher in this budget. EdChoice has actually been shown to harm student achievement. Pouring $24 million more into this program that has hurt the kids who take the vouchers makes little sense. We also need to review amounts going into the other voucher programs when the final budget documents are released to see how much total revenue meant for school districts will be going instead to private, mostly religious schools. Preschool flat funded This was actually shocking. Ohio’s struggles with early childhood education have been stunning, especially given how even conservative states like Oklahoma have created Universal Pre-K. And while there has been a lot of talk about beefing up our state’s early childhood program, this budget is not that. Significantly more charter school oversight DeWine increased the budget for ODE’s charter oversight office from $2.5 million to $7 million. That’s good, but still not enough to oversee an $889 million a year industry with a track record of fraud and underperformance. Workforce Development Much of DeWine’s workforce development agenda is funded within the K-12 budget, with new resources to help students achieve more industry-recognized credentials. Between 2014 and 2018, the percentage of Ohio students leaving high school with an industry-recognized credential grew from about 4 to just over 6 percent. While that’s a significant increase, it’s still far short of what our students should be achieving. We need more details to understand whether the new money in this budget would be paired with programs to motivate more students to seek these credentials during high school. Conclusion Overall, this falls short of the “investment budget” that DeWine promised. There are some small benefits and a few districts will see significant increases to address the real challenges of their most needy students. But it’s neither enough money to overcome the needs of poor students in every district nor is it enough to overcome the last decade of Kasich budget cuts. All while charters more than double their money from lottery funds, vouchers continue to increase, and early childhood education is all but ignored.

ECOT’s Cost to Ohio Local Schools

Prior to its closure, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) received state tax dollars the same way as all Ohio charter schools  — by deducting state aid from the local public school district where the ECOT student lives. Since the 2012-2013 school year, ECOT collected $590 million in taxpayer funding from all but 6 of Ohio’s 613 school districts. Included in that $590 million was the $87 million the school was slated to receive this school year before closing in January.
  Using data from the Ohio Department of Education, we have compiled a spreadsheet showing what state revenue local school districts lost to ECOT each year since 2012-2013, including how much they were set to lose this year prior to the school’s closing.

Here are a few points about how the deductions shook out overall:

  • Columbus City Schools accounted for more than 10 percent of ECOT’s funding, even though last year the district outperformed ECOT on more state report card measures.
  • While $286 million transferred to ECOT came from urban districts, the next highest amount came from districts listed as low-poverty suburban districts.
  • Rural and small town school districts lost $198 million to ECOT
  • By contrast, the state’s wealthiest, highest performing school districts lost $27.2 million to ECOT
  • Schools in generally affluent Butler County lost $19 million to ECOT, which was about the same as Akron’s Summit County. Butler lost more than all but six of Ohio’s 88 counties
>> Elected Officials and Candidates: Look up School Districts in your Congressional or Legislative District

Three things to watch as House Republicans put their stamp on the state budget

House leadership have spent their two-week spring recess reviewing over 800 amendments that legislators want to see included in the state budget. Many of them will be incorporated into a new version of the budget (House Bill 59) that is expected to be adopted by the Finance committee next Tuesday. Below are three issues to keep an eye on next week as the budget process moves forward. [Read more…]

News Release: Charter Schools Cost State Twice as Much per Student as Traditional Schools

For Immediate Release: February 14, 2013 Contact: Dale Butland, 614-783-5833

IO: Charter Schools Cost State Twice as Much per Student as Traditional Schools

Report Finds “Deduction” System Overpays Charters, Shortchanges Traditional Students; Says Majority of Charter Money Goes to Poorer Performing Schools

Columbus — Innovation Ohio, a progressive think tank headquartered in Columbus, released a new report today which finds that charter schools not only cost the state twice as much money per student as traditional schools, but that the “deduction system” currently used to fund them “has a profoundly negative impact on the 90% of Ohio children who remain in traditional public schools.” The study also found that most of the state money transferred to charters went to schools with worse student performance scores than the school districts from which the money and students came.

Specific findings of the study include:
  • In FY 2012, charter schools received $7,141 per pupil in state money — more than twice the $3,399 traditional public schools received from the state after charter deductions;
  • Charter school funding is based on the cost of educating kids in a traditional school, despite the fact that charters have far lower actual costs. Charters pay teachers less, have no student transportation expenses, and are exempt from some 270 legal and regulatory requirements with which traditional schools must comply.
  • The resulting overpayment to charters comes at the expense of traditional school students. In FY 2012, for example, the $774 million transferred to charters gave traditional school children, on average, 6.5% less funding than the state said they needed.
  • Although proponents of “school choice” often cast charter schools as superior to traditional schools, 85% of those who transferred in the 2011-12 school year left districts with better state performance results than the charters to which they went. [Read more…]

Failure for Half of New Money School Levies This Week

cutsleviesfeatThree of the six new money school levies on Tuesday’s special election ballots failed. The Midview levy passed with 62% voting in favor of the property tax. The Jackson Center levy passed after failing by only 3 votes in the November election. Waterloo Schools levy passed by just 25 votes, or 50-49%. The failure of the levies for the Hillsdale, Coventry and Edison districts could result in immediate consequences. Hillsdale may be forced to lay off as many as 19 staff members to close a $1.7 million deficit, and Edison has said it will eliminate busing and close an elementary school. The three levies that passed will add to the $487 million in new taxes Ohio residents have voted to put into effect since the Kasich budget — which left schools with $1.8 billion less funding — was introduced.

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