Ohio’s big voucher program has been in a lot of trouble, particularly from the courts that have ruled it unconstitutional. Legislators are scrambling to save it, but as former legislator and education policy expert Stephen Dyer points out, they are unlikely to succeed.
After returning from vacation, I’ve noticed a flurry of legislative activity to try to sand the edges off the unconstitutional, taxpayer funded private school tuition subsidy program for billionaires.
But the problem is that the program simply cannot exist in this state under the current Ohio Constitution. And capping income at $500,000 to keep Jeffrey Epstein buddy Les Wexner from getting the unconstitutional subsidy is not even close to what needs done (though I admit, it may help give cover to the robed politicians on Ohio’s Supreme Court).
As I’ve pointed out previously:
The only way to really address Judge Page’s decision is to do the following: kill EdChoice, transfer that money instead to fully fund the Fair School Funding Plan, require any voucher recipient to have spent at least 180 days attending a public school prior to receiving a voucher, give the same amount of state aid to the student as they would have received in their public school, require any voucher recipient school to accept anyone who applies, require the schools to not charge any tuition above the voucher amount (which was the case in the beginning), require the voucher money to be publicly audited and limit the vouchers to non-religious schools.
And there is still the one-system constitutional question that I don’t think even this solution would address. As I’ve mentioned before, more private schools get taxpayer funded tuition subsidies than there are public school districts — an insane, but true fact.
So while I am enjoying watching legislators recognize EdChoice is in real danger of being killed — as well as encouraged to see their panic, their nibbling around the edges ain’t cutting it.