Stephen Dyer: Taxpayers to subsidize private school tuitions at greater rate than urban public school children
Stephen Dyer looks at one of the effects of the Ohio legislature’s latest exercise in dismantling public education. On the one hand, they did make strides in funding for public education. But…
But the massive increase to private school tuition subsidies that accompanied the public school increase is a colossal turd in the punchbowl. How colossal?
Try this on for size:
Because the state increased the private school tuition subsidy to $8,407 per high school student, the state will now provide $210 more per student to parents whose kids are already in private schools than they will to public school students in Ohio’s urban core of Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo or Youngstown schools, which educate 173,000 students.
In fact, that $8,407 per pupil amount is greater than the per pupil state aid for nearly 8 in 10 Ohio students. A remarkable 1.13 million Ohio students will get less state aid than the parents of a private school student will receive next year.
Oh, and did I mention that not a penny of these tuition subsidies will be audited by a public entity? So we have no idea if the money is being spent educating kids or buying sweet rides for private school administrators. (Because that’s never happened in this state).
And the disparity is despite Ohio’s historic public school funding increase that occurred in this budget — again, a great accomplishment.
But man. This is crazy.