Like several states, Ohio offers residents vouchers to attend private religious schools, a program it launched in 1997. But this year, the state made history by offering grants directly to religious schools for renovating and constructing buildings, so they can welcome even more students.
The move, which is popular with Republicans who have a supermajority in both chambers of the Ohio Legislature, is “nearly unprecedented in modern U.S. history” and may be the “next frontier” in states’ growing efforts to increase public funding of religious schools, reported ProPublica, which broke the story last week.
The change in Ohio comes as “billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country,” according to the Washington Post, “as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.”
The Post found 29 states, most of them GOP-led, now offer some kind of vouchers. Arizona budgeted $624 million for vouchers, but demand exceeded expectations, creating a statewide budget crunch.
Since the Ohio schools receiving the new state construction grants are private, they aren’t required to report on how they use the public funds they receive.
When Ohio first offered vouchers 27 years ago, it limited them to students in Cleveland so they could find alternatives to some of that city’s poorly funded public schools. But last year Ohio made its voucher program “universal,” giving tuition vouchers to any family that makes up to 450% of the poverty line ($150,000 for a family of four).
The voucher program educated 20,142 students at a cost of $993.7 million. That’s up from the $383.7 million Ohio spent on private religious education the year before, according to the Dayton Daily News.
The report concluded that Ohio’s universal voucher program is “largely subsidizing families already sending their kids to private schools.”
The Daily News found that during the first year of Ohio’s universal voucher program enrollment at private schools rose only 3.7% while voucher usage soared by 313%. The report concluded that Ohio’s universal voucher program is “largely subsidizing families already sending their kids to private schools.”
School districts in Ohio have failed in their efforts to convince legislators to limit the voucher program, so more than 140 districts have banded together to create the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy for School Funding, which is suing the state and has launched a “Vouchers Hurt Ohio” campaign to rouse voters.
“Lawmakers won’t listen,” says the coalition. “We have tried to explain how vouchers hurt Ohio, but legislative leaders are doubling down and expanding the private school voucher program. We are building a broad coalition to bring our argument before the Ohio Supreme Court and reign in the out-of-control voucher program that’s hurting our kids, our schools, parents, educators, businesses, our communities and all of us.”
The “Vouchers Hurt Ohio” campaign is up against the powerful Center for Christian Virtue, an activist group that’s one of 41 state family policy councils affiliated with Focus on the Family.
The center, which is located near the Ohio Statehouse and has fought against pornography, sexual art exhibits, LGBT rights, and strip clubs, also operates the Ohio Christian Education Network, which claims more than 170 evangelical and Catholic schools as members.
OCEN promotes “freedom in education” and supports “initiatives that prevent the government from intruding on the right of Christian schools to teach gospel-centered principles.”
It describes its mission: “With a daily presence in the Ohio Statehouse, OCEN is your partner in combatting additional regulations that make it tougher to provide Christian education and maintain Christian schools. … Initiatives to promote school choice programs come with as few strings attached as possible, ensuring private Christian schools do not have to compromise their operating principles in order to have students enrolled on state-sponsored scholarships or tax credit programs.”
OCEN is also suing Ohio, complaining Ohio school districts opposing vouchers are part of a public school “monopoly” that restricts parents’ freedom. The center says the coalition’s arguments against vouchers are fiction, not fact.
“Odds are you’ve likely seen the heavy media bias against Ohio’s school choice expansion this past year, extolling the cost, claiming it’s a misuse of taxpayer funds, and decrying private schools as the lesser education option,” says CCV publicity.
But CCV says “these common anti-school choice arguments are based on cherry-picked data or fail to consider the most important factor in school choice — parental satisfaction.”
Matt Huffman, president of the Ohio State Senate, is a Catholic attorney who has promoted more support of religious schools. He lives in Lima, Ohio, where his wife works as secretary of Lima Central Catholic High School.