Ohio State Fair was a vehicle to inform the public about divisive private school voucher issues

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Some years ago, while planning my upcoming retirement, I asked a fellow school administrator what it was like for him to be physically and emotionally away from the job and career.

“Every day is Saturday morning,” he replied without hesitation.

In my case, as a way to resist the every-day-is-Saturday-morning syndrome, I signed up to be a volunteer with several organizations, including a community arts group and a hospital. But the volunteer assignment I love most during retirement comes several times each year, when I assist the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding and its allied group Vouchers Hurt Ohio by staffing an exhibit booth at the Ohio School Boards Association Capital Conference as well as the Ohio State Fair.

Staffing a booth at the State Fair provides a unique opportunity to observe a cross section of the state’s citizens and engage with them in assessing attitudes and perceptions on a variety of public issues. Moreover, a good ear at the fair can also discern individual and family needs as well.

This year, a colleague and I greeted nearly two hundred Ohioans who stopped by our booth one day to learn more about the EdChoice Voucher Expansion scheme sneaked through the legislature at the end of a session, hidden in the budget details like a Russian nesting doll.

We shared these facts:

• • The universal voucher scheme is illegal because it clearly violates the Ohio Constitution’s requirement in Article VI, Section 2 that no “religious or other sect or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to … any part of the school funds of this state.”
  • Vouchers use public funds for private purposes, and these monies come from the same line item in the state budget used to fund public schools.
  • In addition to being illegal, vouchers increase the reliance on local property taxes to fund public schools, guaranteeing more ballot measures in the future.
  • Participants in the Ed Choice Expansion voucher program increased more than 274% over the previous fiscal year, the result being that nearly $1 billion could have been used to adequately fund public schools.
  • The great majority of public funds for vouchers are consumed by religious schools, with Catholic schools being the greatest beneficiaries of tax dollars.
  • The idea of “school choice,” where proponents claimed for years that poor families can “escape failing public schools” has been proven false. Instead, the Economic Policy Institute determined that “v ouchers benefit the wealthy at the expense of low-income and rural communities.” Moreover, the EPI study found that “… since vouchers typically do not cover the full cost of private school, low-income families are still unable to afford private school education — even with a voucher — and few rural students have access to private schools.”

When this information was shared with the citizens that stopped by our booth, we soon realized that they were mostly unaware of the basic facts as outlined in these bullet points. The contacts made at the State Fair and at subsequent events allowed us not only to share information but also use the experience as a product from a focus group, where our message is refined and passed on to colleagues, the media, and to neighbors and friends.

Our team of volunteers at the Ohio Coalition and Vouchers Hurt Ohio will continue to inform our fellow citizens that public funds are a public good. That conversation is focused on what is at stake in the legislature’s illegal and reckless behavior in funding private and religious school tuition for high-income families that looks like a blatant attempt to destroy public education.

Nearly one-third of the state’s school districts have joined the lawsuit to end the voucher program because of its questionable constitutionality in supporting private and religious schools as well as its obvious funding of multiple systems of education. In addition to the language in Article VI, Section 2 that prohibits the use of state funds for “religious or other sect or sects,” the first part of that section calls for the General Assembly to “ secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state…” Note the use of the singular form system in the language of the Ohio Constitution.

The lawsuit supported by the state’s public school districts challenging the voucher program is set to begin on Nov. 4 in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. Regardless of the outcome, it is expected that the appeals process will propel the case to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Those who have chosen to defend public education from this flagrant assault on societal norms are asking the public to also serve as volunteers in spreading this information so that an informed citizenry can be a true arsenal of democracy. Click here to see if your school district has joined the lawsuit to ensure that public funds are used for our public schools that are open to all and who otherwise do not discriminate, as is the practice of most private and religious schools.

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