Advocates who are prepping Ohio school voucher lawsuit say latest budget continues to hurt public education – cleveland.com

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COLUMBUS, Ohio- Public school advocates who plan to sue Ohio over private school vouchers say the recently passed two-year state budget contains more money and programs for private and home schools.

The advocacy groups – Vouchers Hurt Ohio and the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding – say the budget is being reviewed by their attorneys at the Cleveland law firm of Walter Haverfield.

They believe the provisions funnel state money away from public schools and will make their case – which has been in the works for months before the budget passed and involves over 70 school districts – against the state stronger, said William Phillis, executive director of the coalition. Phillis was involved in the DeRolph v. Ohio case spanning 11 years in the 1990s and early 2000s that resulted in the Ohio Supreme Court declaring the state’s public school funding system unconstitutional.

Among provisions in the budget dedicated to private and home schools:

-An increase in the maximum voucher scholarship amounts from $4,650 to $5,500 for grades K-8 and $6,000 to $7,500 in grades 9-12.

– A tax credit of up to $250 for instruction items for people who home school their kids.

-A tax credit of up to $1,000 for donations made to “scholarship granting organizations,” which are nonprofits that help low-income families of K-12 children pay for private school.

-Creation of the Afterschool Child Enrichment Educational Savings Account Program in which the state will give $500 if requested by households at or below 300% of the federal poverty line, which is $79,500 for a family of four. Private and home schooled children would be eligible, along with public school children. Money could be used for day camps, before- and after-school programs, the purchase of home school curriculum and materials, tutoring, music lessons, language classes, field trips to museums and theaters and other activities.

-Families can get a tax credit of up to $2,500 a year for tuition to send kids to a category of private schools known as “non-chartered, non-tax supported schools.” These usually religious schools choose not to participate in the voucher program. To be eligible for vouchers, private schools must obtain a “charter” from the Ohio Department of Education, which requires giving certain standardized tests, among other requirements that some parochial schools aren’t interested in. In the budget, there is now a nonrefundable credit for kids who attend these non-chartered private schools.

Phillis described many of these programs as gimmicks.

“The bottom line is these are foot-in-the-door tactics,” he said. “They wouldn’t start out with a full-voucher for home schools, but that will come. They didn’t start out with $7,500 with high school kids for a voucher. They started out with a modest rate and increased it incrementally until they’re full bloom.”

Phillis said vouchers started as a small project in Cleveland that grew.

“The vouchers cost taxpayers last school year $350 million,” he said. “And the total costs of vouchers since 2008 has been $2.5 billion.”

The attorneys working on the lawsuit will file it soon, Phillis said.

Phillis said that the case will focus on Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution – specifically the first part: “The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state…”

But Ohio President Matt Huffman, who supports school choice, believes Ohio’s educational system will hold up in court.

“Remember, the language is ‘thorough and efficient,’” he said. “So ‘thorough’ means everyone has educational opportunities, and to me the educational opportunities that they can best choose from. And ‘efficient’ must mean, at the cost that is best to the taxpayer. So we’ve increased spending in the public school system, in the last 25 years, adjusted for inflation, by 50%. And we don’t even have as many kids in the public school system. And that’s not counting the $12 billion we’ve spent on school buildings. So how is it that someone could argue we’re not spending enough money on public schools? It’s really incredulous.”

Huffman defended the increase in the amount of the voucher scholarships, because it hadn’t changed in five years, he said.

“As with many things, the folks who have the ability financially to do what they want are getting a better product often in the public school. That’s why Relators put that: ‘Top-rated schools,’ that sort of thing,” Huffman said. “So if you can afford to move into the school district you want and if you can afford to pay for a private school, that’s all fine. But not everybody gets to do that.”

And even when the district is good, not every educational setting is the right fit for a child, he said.

That’s why it’s important for the state to help families that want to send their children to private schools. Education is essential to how far people will succeed in their life, Huffman said.

“We need to try the best we can to put everybody on fundamental footing,” he said.

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