What's next for EdChoice in Ohio?
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Weeks ago, a Franklin County judge ruled the EdChoice scholarship program was unconstitutional and the next day, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said he will be appealing that decision.
Now, people across the state may be wondering what comes next.
The Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit over EdChoice has been making its way through the court system since 2022 and it isn’t over yet, even with the most recent ruling.
The EdChoice program provides partial or full scholarships to students of all income levels so they can attend private schools.
Despite ruling the program as unconstitutional, the Franklin County judge said it can continue since the lawsuit will likely progress through appeals court.
“She stayed her ruling. So it has no effect on the current program. It can continue as is,” said Yitz Frank, the president of School Choice Ohio. “We’ve been spending a lot of time working with school leaders and parents directly to kind of explain to them there's nothing to worry about right now.”
The judge said that EdChoice takes money from public schools to fund the private school scholarships which unfairly creates a system of separately funded private schools.
Although nothing changes now, leaders at Vouchers Hurt Ohio called the unconstitutional ruling a win.
“It was also a really good opportunity for us to just expose the fact that the whole idea of school choice in Ohio from a legal perspective is a fairytale,” said Dan Heintz with Vouchers Hurt Ohio.
As for what comes next, both Frank and Heintz said they believe this lawsuit will make it all the way to the state’s top court.
“We’ve always expected this case to make its way before the Ohio Supreme Court and we're pretty confident that we're going to prevail there,” Frank said.
“We expect that the same outcome will occur, that we will be successful on behalf of Ohio's taxpayers yet again,” Heintz said.
According to Heintz, this lawsuit is about reclaiming taxpayer money from private school scholarships.
“A family should make whatever decision that they want to make. They just shouldn't force their neighbors to pay the check for that decision,” Heintz said.
But Frank said EdChoice is a necessary program for thousands of families. Especially low income students who may not do well in public school settings.
“A negative ruling here will create enormous chaos. There will be hundreds of thousands of families that will be impacted by this, and it wouldn't save the state any money. These parents would have nowhere to go,” Frank said.
With the Attorney General’s appeal, the lawsuit will next go to the Court of Appeals. From there, it could advance to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Both sides expect this to happen within the next few years.
Learn more about Vouchers Hurt Ohio at https://vouchershurtohio.com/ and School Choice Ohio at https://scohio.org/