Stephen Dyer, former legislator and education funding expert in Ohio, explains how badly out of whack Ohio’s funding system has become.
This is getting ridiculous.
Ohio lawmakers and governors have so overvalued failing Charter Schools and unconstitutional private school tuition subsidies that in some communities state taxpayers are paying more to educate students in privately run schools than local public schools.
Columbus — Ohio’s largest school district — is the poster child for this phenomenon. Last school year, Ohio sent Columbus City Schools $166 million to educate the district’s 41,587 students. Meanwhile, the state sent $328 million to pay for the 30,085 students enrolled in Charter Schools and private schools.
That’s right.
The state paid these privately run schools in Columbus (and online) nearly double what they paid kids in the state’s largest public school district.
That’s obscene.
But it’s not unique.
There are 26 Ohio school districts where the state’s sending 75 percent or more of the amount of funding to privately run schools than students in the public schools. On avergae, the state is sending 20 percent of the funding it sends to students in public schools to failing charter schools or to subsidize the unconstitutional private school voucher program.