The Buckeye Institute joins fight for school choice vouchers

A Columbus-based think tank wants Ohio’s 10th District Court of Appeals to protect school choice for parents and students who have benefited from voucher programs and those who will benefit from them in the future.

In June, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page ruled that Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship Program, better known as EdChoice, is unconstitutional. The judge concluded that by creating and expanding the EdChoice Scholarship program, lawmakers did not support “a thorough and efficient system” of schools throughout the Buckeye State.

The judge stayed the ruling pending appeal. After the decision, Attorney General Dave Yost filed a notice of appeal in a case, setting up a hearing before Ohio’s 10th District Court of Appeals.

“School choice is being threatened by a coalition of disgruntled and self-interested districts that previously tried and failed to end Ohio’s groundbreaking Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program,” Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, said in a release. “That initial effort was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, and The Buckeye Institute remains confident that this newest and even more ill-advised attempt will meet a similar fate.”

While conservative-leaning groups backed the appeal, more liberal groups lauded Page’s June 24 ruling, saying non-public schools shouldn’t receive taxpayer dollars.

The Case

The case, Columbus City School District v. State of Ohio, was originally filed in January 2022.

According to the Ohio Capital Journal, Page found that state lawmakers have “exceedingly broad powers to tax, organize, administer and control the common school system.” However, those powers “do not include unlimited discretion,” adding that it “is mere semantics” to say that “EdChoice” vouchers are a scholarship program rather than a system of schools.

“More importantly, private schools participating in EdChoice receive substantially more state funding per student than public schools,” Page wrote, per the report. “Where EdChoice participating private schools are inexplicably receiving double the per-pupil state funding than public schools, it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the students as opposed to a system that benefits private schools.”

The Argument

In its brief, The Buckeye Institute argues that the lower court effectively granted itself a line-item veto over state spending decisions. This move could open the door to an untold number of future lawsuits, the group contends.

Additionally, such a veto would allow districts to claim that state funds spent elsewhere, including on programs like Medicaid, thereby reducing the availability of taxpayer money for public schools.

“Although the name of this case is Columbus City School District v. State of Ohio, it is a clash between parents who want educational opportunities for their children and the public-school establishment that resents the success and popularity of school choice and bristles at the principle on which that disruptive alternative stands: that parents, not school districts, should control K-12 education for their children,” Greg R. Lawson, research fellow at The Buckeye Institute, said in a release.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers established Ohio’s first school choice program in 1995. Under the EdChoice program, parents receive vouchers that allow qualifying students in kindergarten through 12th grade to attend private schools.