In the mid-90s, Ohio became the second state to offer school vouchers, billed as a way to help Cleveland families escape struggling schools. Today, the benefits extend to more than 150,000 students in the state, and costs nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money, with the majority of scholarships going to families that in most cases were already able to afford private school tuition.
Since the most recent expansion in 2023, allowing families of all incomes to receive at least some state funding, many private schools have increased tuition, and public school enrollment has seen decline.
A new ProPublica investigation tracked the evolution of Ohio's voucher movement, which found in unpublished letters from the movement's founders, a decades-long strategy to get to where the program is today, driven by a network of politicians, church officials and advocates.
We'll start Tuesday's "Sound of Ideas" talking to the reporter behind the investigation.
Later in this hour, we'll share host Jenny Hamel's recent visit to the MetroHealth System, to meet the new CEO and President, Dr. Christine Alexander-Rager. Her tenure comes after a period of instability for Metrohealth leadership, with two CEOs fired from the job since 2022.
Alexander-Rager is a familiar face at the public hospital system, working for MetroHealth for close to 30 years in a variety of roles in the executive office, and before that, as the chair of family medicine for 14 years.
Guests:
-Alec MacGillis, Reporter, ProPublica
-Christine Alexander-Rager, M.D., President & CEO, MetroHealth
