The view from the Idea Center
Since school funding was declared unconstitutional in Ohio in 1997, it seems the state has been trying different formulas that don’t quite solve the problem of property tax funding favoring wealthier districts.
The latest battle is the EdChoice voucher program, which has been based on individual public school building grades, not the financial need of families using the vouchers.
One issue is the debate within that debate. The state’s A-F report card system for all districts and buildings is under scrutiny, with Governor Mike DeWine saying he’s open to tweaking that system once again. It seems counterproductive to base a funding decision on a program that may not exist in its current state for much longer.
But like a lot of issues in Columbus, it’s all up in the air. One district closely watching the EdChoice debate is the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District , which has 1400 students already using EdChoice vouchers to pay tuition at private schools.
“The thing I don’t think people realize is that 94 percent of those 1,400 kids never attended our schools,” said Scott Gainer, the district’s chief financial officer. “So students are accessing vouchers that never were here or never intended on coming here. So we’re not losing kids to EdChoice, we’re losing money to EdChoice.”
Ideastream’s Jenny Hamel found the program to be popular with parents in the district.
“We realized we’d have a chance to use an EdChoice voucher, it seemed like a no-brainer to us,” said Dan Reynolds, whose daughter goes to kindergarten at St. Dominic in Shaker Heights, “to have the opportunity to educate our child in a community that has weekly Mass, talks about the Catholic faith but also a community that welcomes non-Catholic kids too.”
For now, Republicans in the state House and Senate have competing bills, with the House version favoring an approach based on economic need. That path reportedly has favor among state Democrats.
But parents and observers of state politics must continue to wonder if any compromise is just temporarily plugging a leak, or if these continued debates get the state any closer to a constitutional solution on school funding.
After more than 20 years, it’s unlikely a fix that’s still in progress can come to any kind of quick resolution.
Thanks for reading and listening,
Glenn Forbes
Need to KnOH
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