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BELMONT COUNTY – As the Ohio House of Representatives prepares to vote – possibly within the next week – an education bill that would change the public-to-private school voucher system is creating debate throughout the Buckeye State.
House Bill 136 is the project of Rep. Matt Huffman (R-Lima) and passed the House Education Committee in late September on a 12-10 vote.
The state’s present “scholarship” or “voucher” system, called EdChoice, was developed to assist lower-income families whose local neighborhood schools show consistently poor performance. Most of these schools are located in urban areas like Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus. Cleveland has a scholarship program of its own. Families can choose a private school chartered by the state and receive money toward tuition. The local public school loses the per-student support from the state for this child.
Private, or “chartered non-public schools,” according to the Ohio Department of Education website, “are not supported by local or state tax dollars and require the family to pay tuition. Chartered non-public schools are eligible for the Administrative Cost Reimbursement Program, Auxiliary Services Program and Transportation services for students.”
The state currently can pay as much as $1,000 per student to private schools for auxiliary services. Vouchers in the EdChoice program pay $4,250 ($5,000 for high school) per student, with 15,411 issued this year. In the Cleveland Municipal School District, 5,032 vouchers have been issued at $3,825 ($4,500 for high school.) The EdChoice and Cleveland programs are running as is at a cost of $92 million.
During 2010 there were nearly 181,000 students enrolled in Ohio’s private schools and 1.8 million students in public schools, including charter schools. Over the past 10 years public school numbers have fluctuated little while private schools in general have seen about a 20 percent decline in enrollment.
HB 136, titled the Parental Choice and Tax Savings Scholarship (PACT,) completely changes the scenario and purpose of the scholarship program. Huffman’s proposal raises the eligibility requirements to families with annual household incomes of less than $95,000. Additionally, parents would be able to apply for the vouchers regardless of their local public school’s performance record, even those achieving “School of Excellence” status. Finally, HB 136 also opens up the private school eligibility list to chartered parochial and faith-based schools. Students attending private schools currently could be phased into the scholarship program over the next few years, though, if HB 136 passes, private school kindergarteners would be eligible for the vouchers as early as next school year.
Philosophically, PACT proponents say that the choice of the child’s education is put back into the parents’ hands. The program would give children what parents perceive as a “better” education, smaller class sizes and alternative teaching methods. A group called School Choice Ohio is one of the most vocal.
“This is not about public versus private. It’s about the individual needs of each child,” said Kaleigh Frazier, communications coordinator for SCO. “Education is not one-size-fits-all.” The SCO and PACT supporters cite parent concerns about bullying, safety and their children’s abilities to perform in stressful environments.
“One thing that people overlook,” added Jason Warner, SCO’s government affairs coordinator, “is that, even in a designated ‘School of Excellence’ or ‘Excellence with Distinction,’ are all students performing well? Parents now are boxed in. This bill will mean their choices aren’t limited by a zip code. It shifts the emphasis onto the family’s needs.”
Statewide, the bill’s opponents are equally determined, beginning with more than 250 Ohio school districts passing resolutions formally opposing HB 136. Three education management organizations-the Ohio School Board Association, the Ohio Association of School Board Officials and the Buckeye Association of School Administrators-released a 16-page report by the Education Tax Policy Institute on Dec. 1 examining cost estimates on the proposal based on both current private school attendance and conservative long-term enrollments. Allowing for a four to eight year “phase-in” period, their findings and calculations indicate a cost to the state of $480 million to accommodate present, phased-in private school enrollments without new transfers from public schools.
In effect, these organizations say, the bill will be paying tuitions for students who have already chosen or would not choose (based on present enrollment figures) to attend public school, therefore subsidizing private and parochial education. Additionally, most private schools offer their own scholarship and payment programs.
Based on a five percent transfer rate from public to private schools, or 88,500 students, the total cost to the state could exceed $850 million, or $9600 per pupil. Though the bill stipulates a cap of 60,000 on the number of vouchers available for the EdChoice and PACT programs, Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the OSBA, points out that the number may be arbitrary. “We’ve just seen what the state did with the 15,000 cap. As voucher numbers approached 14,000, they doubled it to 30,000. Next year the cap is 60,000.” Across the state taxpayers and school districts are wondering how the state would be funding the additional vouchers.
Here are some of the financial mechanics. Based on a sliding scale related to household income, yearly voucher amounts for PACT can range from $2,313 to $4,626 per student. When a student leaves a school district (for another district or for a private school) state money is deducted from the former school’s budget. In the case of PACT the proposed deduction is a flat fee of $5,700 per student. In many cases throughout Ohio, state aid per student totals less than the $5,700, especially after this year’s budget cuts.
Locally, for example, Barnesville, Buckeye Local, Shadyside and St. Clairsville districts all receive less than $5,700 per pupil from the state. Union Local receives $5,723. St. Clairsville receives a per-pupil amount of $2,958, so when a family opts to use the PACT program, the state will deduct $5,700 from the school’s state aid. The district will lose its $2,958 plus an additional $2,742-nearly another student’s worth of state funds. Lawmakers say that schools will not lose more than the total of what the state provides to them, but in some districts vouchers for five or six students could mean a loss of nearly $50,000 per year. Cumulative vouchers could add up to future levies on the ballot as districts try to recoup and regroup.
HB 136 opponents question the right of the state to use public dollars for private and faith-based education. SCO’s Warner explains this was decided by the Ohio Supreme Court in a case involving the Cleveland Scholarship program. The ruling said that the state is providing the vouchers to the parent rather than the private school. Therefore it is the parent’s decision on where the funds are used. Warner admits, though, that in the end the voucher programs are funded by tax dollars. “But it would be like someone saying, ‘I don’t want any of my tax money funding welfare programs.’ It’s the way it is.”
“This is an unwise and unwarranted attack on public schools,” said Asbury. “This is privatizing education, a raid on public school dollars to support private education.” He adds that a poll taken earlier this year indicated that 60 percent of those Ohioans surveyed said tax dollars should not be used for private education. The ETPI report and opponents state that the PACT program will actually provide incentive for families to leave and drain funds from public school systems instead of investing in improvements. A key point to remember is that local levy revenue will stay within the district. Asbury adds that no one can predict what will happen if and when the bill passes, but says the flexible “cap” is particularly problematic by making school budget planning extremely difficult.
At the core of the issue is the question of performance: is private school better than public school? The original scholarship programs, EdChoice and Cleveland’s, were developed to provide enrichment opportunities for low-income families tethered to historically “bad” schools. HB 136 opens up the opportunities to a far greater population without rewarding consistently “good” public schools or supporting schools in need of assistance.
The ETPI report and public school supporters cite a performance study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) done on the Cleveland and Milwaukee (WI) scholarship programs saying that statistically there was “little or no difference” between the performance of public school students and vouchered private school students. Warner says that there are conflicting studies on “public versus private” throughout the country and points to a report by the Ohio Association for Gifted Children (OAGC) called “The Illusion of Excellence” about Ohio’s school rating system. The report discusses lowering state standards to accommodate and elevate mediocre performance. He added that, as HB 136 stands, it incorporates a review process.
HB 136 is still in the House and will have to pass there before heading to the Senate, which is why the State Superintendent at the Ohio Department of Education has no official comment. An ODE spokesperson said, “From a department perspective, we are moving forward with our current initiatives.” At this time there are rumblings of changes to the bill, but no indications of what those may entail. Both supporters and opponents are encouraging voters to contact their state representatives’ offices with their thoughts.
Valenti can be reached at gvalenti@timesleaderonline.com.