This fall marks the third year that the EdChoice Scholarship program has been universally available to all families to cover private school tuition, regardless of family income. Initially, the universal expansion attracted mostly families whose children already attended private schools. After all, these families already had seats in the school they wanted and were well acquainted with renewal paperwork, uniform requirements, the tuition-payment grind, and other details. This was a reasonable and expected initial response to increased voucher eligibility.
However, voucher expansion is also intended to attract new students from families who have wanted a private option but who simply couldn’t afford it. This is a harder lift given all the hoops involved in applying to a private school and registering for the state voucher. For some families, it was likely complicated further by a dearth of schools or the lack of available seats in extant schools or in desired grade levels. If the voucher expansion is going to have a significant impact, it will require previously-non-participating schools to begin accepting vouchers, participating schools to expand their capacity, and the establishment of new private schools. Anecdotal evidence suggests that all three of these things are underway in the Buckeye State.
During the 2011–12 school year, the list of private schools accepting EdChoice Scholarship funds across the state comprised 322 buildings from kindergarten to twelfth grade. In 2023–24, that number was 450. This year, the final number will be above 500. Of all the private schools my wife and I considered for our children in Franklin County in 2011, none of them accepted the EdChoice voucher. By 2023, all but one had changed course. This is game changing for many Columbus-area families, and newsworthy all by itself. But wait. There’s more!
News reports show a slew of expansion activity at existing private schools across the state over the last few years. Schools are renovating to add more classroom and lab space, constructing whole new wings for things like grade level expansion and enhanced gym and arts programming, and even purchasing closed district or private school buildings to expand their space in one fell swoop. Controversially, the state is even helping to pay part of the cost of some of these expansions, using a tiny fraction of the funding provided in the state capital budget that nonprofits and traditional school districts use to build their playgrounds and science labs and other community-improving facilities. There is little doubt, however, that private schools are as integral to their neighborhoods and communities as many of these other recipients and funding such projects extends benefits far beyond school walls, whoever receives it.
The final piece of good news: New schools are also sprouting. It takes a lot to start a school from scratch, so this would be a lagging indicator of the impact of EdChoice expansion. But it’s clearly happening. A quick comparison of the rosters of private schools from 2022 to 2024 shows more than two dozen new schools established in the last two years. Not all of them accept vouchers, but most do; and more are coming. The newcomers run the gamut from church-based schools of many faiths to classical academies to nonsectarian schools. Most appear small and community-centric and seem to be focusing on younger grades to start.
News coverage of these start up efforts reveals dedicated educators embracing creative learning models aimed at specific populations of students whose families are likely looking for something different than a one-size-fits-all district school. And at least one is swinging for the fences in terms of the difference it aims to make in the lives of long-underserved students in Fordham’s home town of Dayton. Kudos to venture philanthropists like The Drexel Fund, whose support allowed the opening of Dreams Academy in Akron this year—a school for Black boys in grades K–2 intended to start them early on a positive and productive life path. Thanks to them, Dreams Academy is opening this month as a new voucher-accepting private school option for these families instead of the charter school model originally envisioned which, the founder says, would have taken several more years to launch. Drexel Fund’s Ohio portfolio includes half a dozen other schools, including the expansion of a longstanding Catholic program in northeast Ohio focused on serving students with special needs.
As good as all this news is, it does not represent the end of the story. That one private school my wife and I considered back in the day that still doesn’t take vouchers now? It is one of the most prestigious schools in the area, as well as a rare and sought-after non-religious one. Their reasoning for not participating in EdChoice is likely the same now as it was back then: that voucher amounts are not high enough to make a difference between families affording and not affording to attend. And they are not alone. But how do they know it won’t make a difference until they change their policies and see who shows up? And how can they be convinced to give it a try? A conundrum indeed, but universal voucher eligibility is a key starting point.
There are also many rural areas of the state with few or no private school options. These will be the slowest to experience the positive impacts of voucher expansion. But small schools are more likely to appear there now than ever before, thanks to universal vouchers, and hopefully other education catalyzers will—like the Drexel Fund—recognize the new opportunities across all parts of the state. Additionally, looming over all of this potential is the specter of student transportation—a longstanding horror for school-choice-using families in Ohio who must depend on districts to deliver their kids to and from school even though districts don’t want to and often aren’t very good at it even for their own students.
There is plenty of evidence that private school capacity has grown in Ohio in the wake of universal voucher eligibility. The next big leap forward for private school growth will begin as soon as the General Assembly finally takes the necessary steps to make transportation student- and choice-centric and allocate resources to the schools families really want and are actually attending. Our school choice ecosystem is blossoming, with more promise just ahead.
