Court ruling puts Ohio school vouchers in limbo

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Advocates for Ohio’s School Voucher System said even families with high incomes deserve taxpayer support for private schools.

And they’ll get it in the new Ohio budget that contains more than $700 million for vouchers that will go to private and parochial schools.

Last week, a Franklin County judge declared Ed Choice vouchers to be unconstitutional, but the order was delayed pending an appeal.

In 2024, the state of Ohio spent nearly $1 billion on private school vouchers, with leaders of School Choice Ohio saying it’s money well spent, giving parents and students educational options.

“We've placed children in private schools using Ed Choice,” School Choice Ohio President Eric "Yitz" Frank said. “We find options in public schools that work best for them so we are kind of agnostic about where people go to school, but we do believe they should have the ability to take their tax dollars and go to a school of their choice, whether it’s a private or a public school.”

“The only difference is who pays for it?” teacher and Cleveland Heights School Board Member Dan Heintz said. “Ohio went very successfully for a century with great private schools and great public schools, and it’s really only been about the last 20 years that the private schools started to expect their neighbors, citizens from around the state to underwrite their decision to send their children to a private school.”

Heintz is part of the Vouchers Hurt Ohio group that is suing the state. Their first victory came in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

“The ‘why not’ is the Ohio state constitution, and that’s what we saw Judge Page here in Franklin County decide this week when she ruled that Ed Choice vouchers are a violation of the state constitution,” Heintz said.

Page ruled that lawmakers are violating the Ohio constitution by creating a second system of schools that receive an unreasonably high level of per-student tax dollars.

Critics also point out that vouchers were promised to pull poor students out of underperforming districts, but vouchers often go to affluent families in high-ranking public school districts who never intend to send their children to public schools.

“There are kids that thrive in really what we would call poor-performing schools and there are kids that struggle in really what we consider to be, objectively, affluent schools and so putting the parents in the driver’s seat, we think, will ultimately get better outcomes,” Frank said.

And, for now, parochial and private schools will continue to receive public dollars.

The vouchers are in the budget signed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. The state is poised to appeal the finding in Franklin County Common Pleas Court that the vouchers are unconstitutional. It is expected that the case will go all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, where Republicans hold all but one seat.