Senate Bill 11
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SPONSOR
Senator Sandra O'Brien, District 32 TARGETS Funding for Local Schools K-12 Public Schools K-12 Students DESCRIPTION Expands the availability and amount of EdChoice scholarships, removing money from Ohio's public schools. Also increases the income tax credit for homeschooling families without proposing any additional regulations. |
SB 11 Details
SB 11 is a “universal voucher” bill, meaning it makes money allocated to public schools available to be used with any other education provider. The money removed from local schools is not replaced with any other source.
- Expands voucher eligibility to include all students entering grades K-12 statewide.
- Removes all existing eligibility requirements for the EdChoice program, including income and performance requirements.
- Students who receive a performance-based scholarship in the 2022-2023 school year can renew that scholarship through grade 12 “without meeting the current law renewal requirement to remain in the same resident school district.”
- Ends Cleveland’s pilot project “Scholarship Program” on July 1, 2023. (The Scholarship Program was created to exempt Cleveland schools from the EdChoice program and the removal of resources from local schools that it creates. This bill would end that program.)
- Increases the annual tax credit for homeschooling students from $250 to $2,000 without making any requirements about the education provided for that student.
Honesty for Ohio Education's position
Honesty for Ohio Education opposes Senate Bill 11.
- SB 11 is bad for our local schools, which serve 90% of all students in the state. Vouchers are devastating to public schools, because the money follows the child. Every child who uses a voucher to leave their local school leaves their local school with fewer resources.
- SB 11 exacerbates a historically unconstitutional underfunding of local schools in Ohio. Now the legislature is blaming these same schools for their performance. A complete funding of the Fair School Funding Plan is the right response, not to continue bleeding resources away from the schools that serve the overwhelming majority of families.
- SB 11 puts money at the front of the class, and leaves 90% of Ohio's children trailing behind. Our children must be our priority, not an afterthought. We should be helping our local schools survive so that our kids will thrive.
- SB 11 increases tax credits for homeschooling without increasing the oversight or requirements on homeschooling families. Given Ohio's presence in national news media regarding an Ohio family's creation of a neo-Nazi homeschool curriculum and their distribution of that curriculum to thousands of others, this is not the time to increase resources for a system without any oversight.
Ohio speaks out on universal vouchers
Ohio School Boards Association:
“We believe that Ohio should update and fully fund the Fair School Funding formula before engaging in any type of voucher expansion,” said Jennifer Hogue, director of legislative services for OSBA. “Granting state-funded vouchers reduces the level of funding available to support and improve the public school system to meet the needs of the students that have chosen to attend their public school.”
Read more HERE
AJ Calderone, Superintendent of LaBrae Local Schools:
"Is the achievement of students taking the voucher better than their public school counterparts? Will private schools be required to accept all students? Should Ohio taxpayers fund parent choice? If the State diverts hundreds of millions of dollars to private schools via vouchers, what might be the impact on local public schools? What might be the long-term impact on local property taxes?...
LaBrae is a participating district in the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit. We see vouchers as an existential threat to public schools, which are a foundational institution of our society that play a critical role in fostering individual opportunity and helping to sustain democracy. Moreover, the LaBrae Board of Education believes the lawsuit is integral to protecting public education and Ohio taxpayers."
Read more HERE
Cincinnati Enquirer investigation on EdChoice program results:
Public districts included in the analysis had $410 million deducted and redirected to private schools through the programs since 2018. Ohio's eight largest districts shouldered the heaviest burden, with about $325 million deducted, according to Ohio Department of Education data.
Yet five of the largest districts – Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron and Canton – fared better academically than their local private school rivals, by margins ranging from slight to decisive, according to The Enquirer analysis.
Dayton, Columbus and Youngstown, the remaining three of Ohio's largest districts, had lower test proficiency levels than their surrounding private schools.
In 2019, Black pupils comprised a majority of all students in Ohio's eight largest districts.
But the voucher system has been least successful in educating Black students, testing data shows. About 37% of Black voucher students in Ohio's private schools met or exceeded proficiency, about four percentage points lower than Hispanics and nearly 20 points lower than whites.
Read more HERE.
“We believe that Ohio should update and fully fund the Fair School Funding formula before engaging in any type of voucher expansion,” said Jennifer Hogue, director of legislative services for OSBA. “Granting state-funded vouchers reduces the level of funding available to support and improve the public school system to meet the needs of the students that have chosen to attend their public school.”
Read more HERE
AJ Calderone, Superintendent of LaBrae Local Schools:
"Is the achievement of students taking the voucher better than their public school counterparts? Will private schools be required to accept all students? Should Ohio taxpayers fund parent choice? If the State diverts hundreds of millions of dollars to private schools via vouchers, what might be the impact on local public schools? What might be the long-term impact on local property taxes?...
LaBrae is a participating district in the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit. We see vouchers as an existential threat to public schools, which are a foundational institution of our society that play a critical role in fostering individual opportunity and helping to sustain democracy. Moreover, the LaBrae Board of Education believes the lawsuit is integral to protecting public education and Ohio taxpayers."
Read more HERE
Cincinnati Enquirer investigation on EdChoice program results:
Public districts included in the analysis had $410 million deducted and redirected to private schools through the programs since 2018. Ohio's eight largest districts shouldered the heaviest burden, with about $325 million deducted, according to Ohio Department of Education data.
Yet five of the largest districts – Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron and Canton – fared better academically than their local private school rivals, by margins ranging from slight to decisive, according to The Enquirer analysis.
Dayton, Columbus and Youngstown, the remaining three of Ohio's largest districts, had lower test proficiency levels than their surrounding private schools.
In 2019, Black pupils comprised a majority of all students in Ohio's eight largest districts.
But the voucher system has been least successful in educating Black students, testing data shows. About 37% of Black voucher students in Ohio's private schools met or exceeded proficiency, about four percentage points lower than Hispanics and nearly 20 points lower than whites.
Read more HERE.