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Jan 16 2020

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.

Written by Stephen Dyer · Categorized: K-12 Education, Ohio State Budget · Tagged: Public Education, Public Schools, School Funding, school vouchers, Steve Dyer, voucher, Vouchers

Dec 11 2012

Ohio House School Funding Hearing – Part 2 – The Bad

I wrote yesterday about the many aspects of Wednesday’s Ohio House Committee hearing on education funding that I thought were positive. The witnesses who testified were four of the pillars of American conservative education reform – Eric Hanushek of the Hoover Institution, Rick Hess from the American Enterprise Institute, Students First (Michelle Rhee’s group) and Marguerite Roza of the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, which provided the blueprint for the Cleveland Plan. I repeat that it is unfortunate similar pillars on the more progressive side of the issue, like Diane Ravitch of New York University, or Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford have yet to be consulted. While there were a few positive pieces of Wednesday’s testimony, there were significant concerns as well: [Read more…]

Written by Stephen Dyer · Categorized: Innovation Station, K-12 Education · Tagged: Ohio, Public Education, School Funding, Steve Dyer

Nov 26 2012

IO November 2012 School Levy Project Wrap: Kasich cuts have shifted tax burden or put schools in dire situations

Dyer: Ohio’s reliance on property tax system to fund schools growing, not shrinking under Kasich

Back in October we released an analysis which showed that November school levy initiatives seeking ‘new money’ were the highest since 2008. Just last year, the administration of Gov. John Kasich and the GOP-led Ohio General Assembly cut $1.8 billion from Ohio public education. We believe there is a cause and effect relationship here and it boils down to this: Kasich’s cuts – while making the state budget look better – simply shifted the burden in many villages and cities around Ohio onto the backs of local property tax payers. Of course, in many cases, the levies failed. In those communities Kasich and his rubber stamp Statehouse shifted the burden onto Ohio kids who are losing teachers, bus service, extra-curricular activities and even hours out of the school day. Where new levies pass, the funding burden is shifting to more property taxes. As part of the project we posted several levy profiles on our blog, Innovation Station, and began maintaining a page dedicated to collecting our analysis, profiles and infographics on the topic, Kasich Cuts = More Levies. We want to wrap up the work from this fall, but we will continue to watch what we believe is going to be an unfortunate trend for some time to come in Ohio – more levies or more drastic cuts. A few things to remember about our work. First, we concentrated on ‘new money’ levies. This simply means that districts we looked at were coming to voters with requests for additional or new millage requests. We did not count renewal levies for instance when we pointed out that 83% of Ohio’s counties had new money levies on the ballot. When it came to the districts we chose to profile, there were two criteria. They had to be new money levies and the districts had to have a documented history of recent fairly drastic cuts. Through a review of Ohio local media, such districts – large and small – were not hard to find. One last note on why we chose to look at fall levies rather than all levies from both the spring and fall of this year. The chart to the right shows the success rate of renewal levies v. new levies during fall elections in Ohio. New money levies have a high rate of failure in fall elections. School boards know this. For a board to go to voters for new money in the fall is a sign that funding issues are getting to critical condition in that district. [Read more…]

Written by ronsylvester · Categorized: K-12 Education, Taxation · Tagged: John Kasich, Kasich Cuts, Levies, Property Taxes, School Levies, Steve Dyer

Oct 30 2012

IO Fellow: Public Schools in Ohio Get the Shaft When Pupils Leave District for Charters, Vouchers

IO Education Fellow Steve Dyer has been on the road participating in school funding forums. Today’s Vindicator has coverage of a forum in Austintown last night, “What Does School Choice Cost Community Taxpayers?” From their story:
When a student leaves a public school district, “the amount transferred is almost always more than the state would have given to the district for that pupil,” said Steve Dyer, education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio. Dyer said the state’s per-pupil contribution averages $7,004 for charter schools, $6,320 for online schools, $4,971 for vouchers and $3,033 for local school districts. “This is a problem,” he said. “… And it’s up to grassroots activists to go down to Columbus and change the system.”

Written by ronsylvester · Categorized: Innovation Station, K-12 Education · Tagged: Charter Schools, Ohio, Steve Dyer, Vouchers

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