Vouchers for free tuition at Ohio private schools are being offered once again, and the application window opens Tuesday. The program, called EDCHOICE, operates all across Ohio, except in Cleveland, which has its own voucher program.
Chad Aldis is head of School Choice Ohio, a group that supports the idea of school vouchers. He talked with Ohio Public Radio’s Bill Cohen about who’s eligible for this latest round of vouchers, to be used in the upcoming school year. He says last year, about 14-thousand Ohio parents applied for school vouchers for their children. That basically matched the number of vouchers that were available, so no one who was eligible was turned away. But Aldis says --- if the growth in applications continues, state legislators may have to increase the number of vouchers that the state offers. That could spark controversy, since teacher unions and other education activists charge that the vouchers siphon money away from public schools.