What’s next for private school choice in Ohio?

This is the sixth in a series in which I examine issues in K–12 education that Ohio leaders should tackle in the next biennial state budget. Previous pieces covered the science of reading, funding for low-income pupils, interdistrict open enrollment, guarantees, and public charter schools. This essay looks at private-school scholarship programs.

Understanding that education isn’t one-size-fits-all, state lawmakers have worked to ensure that the individual needs of Ohio students are met. One way they’ve sought to accomplish this is through state-funded scholarships that help make private school options more accessible and affordable.

The earliest of these efforts focused on supporting families whose children were slated to attend low-performing schools and those raising children with disabilities. That was the right thing to do, as they were most in need of the financial assistance that allows them to access schools that work for their children. More recently, lawmakers have moved to expand scholarship eligibility to middle-income households, who also feel a financial pinch when paying tuition. And last year, lawmakers made all students eligible, with the proviso that wealthy parents receive scaled-back scholarships.

During the 2023–24 school year, some 150,000 students—just shy of one in ten statewide—participated in one of the state’s five scholarship programs (Autism, Cleveland, EdChoice, EdChoice Expansion, and Jon Peterson Special Needs). This almost doubles the number of participants compared to the prior year, with much of the uptick reflecting the new inclusion of private school students who had previously paid tuition without state-funded scholarship assistance.

Now that Ohio parents are more firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to their children’s education, the question is what choice-friendly lawmakers should do next. Should they keep pressing forward, or simply defend these gains? The answer is some of both. Here’s a look at how policymakers can work to advance and protect private school choice in the forthcoming budget.

Advancing choice

Low-income students typically benefit from having access to more resources. To its credit, the state provides extra funding for economically disadvantaged students attending public schools via a funding stream known as DPIA. However, it does not do this for low-income students in Ohio’s scholarship initiatives. In the next biennial budget, the legislature should add a poverty weight for low-income students in the Cleveland and EdChoice programs. Students from families with incomes below 185 percent of the federal poverty level—the historical income threshold for DPIA, as well as federal free-or-reduced-price lunch—could receive scholarships that are worth, for instance, 20 percent more than the base scholarship amount. An enhanced scholarship would fund valuable extra supports—e.g., tutoring or other supplements—while also helping to ensure that private-schools can serve low-income students well. The boost in scholarship amounts would also encourage private schools to serve more low-income students.

Another way that lawmakers can strengthen private-school choice is by providing resources for capital projects. Scholarships generally cover regular operating expenses, such as paying teacher salaries and utilities. But they are nowhere near sufficient to help fund larger projects like building renovations or expansions, which usually require hefty philanthropic support.

Some schools have access to deep-pocketed foundations, but not every school is as fortunate. To support more private schools’ facility needs, legislators should explore credit-enhancement or revolving-loan type programs that reduce debt servicing costs and make capital improvement more affordable. These could mirror the types of programs we’ve recommended for public charter schools, which also face significant facility challenges. Providing facility supports would allow existing private schools to expand, as well as incentivize education leaders to start new schools in underserved parts of the state. This could mean more private school options for more Ohio families.

Protecting choice

It’s no secret that the public school establishment is up in arms over the expansion (or as some put it, “explosion”) of private-school choice, as they see it as threatening their education monopoly and financial interests. They pull out all the rhetorical stops, and one of their most oft heard lines of attacks is that scholarships “siphon” money from public schools and leave them “underfunded.”

These criticisms are more myth than reality, and choice-friendly state lawmakers should consider ways to help clear up common misconceptions. Though not discussed below, they can also educate the public about the various ways in which private schools are held accountable—an issue I recently covered at length in another piece.

First, they should use their platforms to remind Ohioans of the significant taxpayer investments being made in public education. In FY23, traditional districts spent on average $15,428 per pupil, with big-city districts such as Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati all spending more than $20,000 per pupil. These funding levels—the highest on record—far exceed the value of Ohio’s scholarships. In addition, solid empirical evidence shows that the growth in private-school choice has done absolutely nothing to lessen per-pupil spending in Ohio’s school districts.

Second, policymakers should continue to make smart budgeting decisions. In spite of critics’ claims of funding cuts, lawmakers in the last budget cycle signed off on a hefty increase in traditional public school funding (on average, a 12 percent bump), even as they expanded scholarship eligibility. This was possible because they foresaw growth in scholarship participation and wisely enlarged the overall K–12 education budget to ensure sufficient funds for both public schools and scholarship programs. Despite the media portraying last year’s roughly $1 billion scholarship expenditure as a surprise, the amount came in just a touch above the Legislative Service Commission’s projected $965 million outlay. Future general assemblies—like this one successfully did—need to continue making sure that budget allocations take into account any anticipated growth in scholarship programs.

Third, lawmakers should improve the reporting of school finance data to ensure a clearer understanding of district funding levels. Specifically, they should:

• Include actual per-pupil funding amounts on district report cards. Presently, only an “adjusted” per-equivalent-pupil amount appears. While allowing for more appropriate spending comparisons between districts with varying demographics,[1] the equivalent amounts also significantly understate actual per-pupil funding. The report card, for example, indicates that Columbus spent $15,372 per equivalent pupil in FY23. Yet on an actual student basis, the district spent $24,467 per pupil—a figure that can only be found buried on another state web page. Reporters or citizens using the report card to locate a district’s basic per-pupil funding could easily get confused and mistakenly compare the equivalent amounts to the scholarship amounts, which aren’t “adjusted.”
   
• Report the amount districts generate on the state-required minimum 20 mill (or 2 percent) local property tax. A common trick employed by school choice opponents is to cite districts’ direct state funding, which may be lower than the scholarship amounts, to imply that lawmakers are gutting district funding. But this tactic ignores the state’s progressive approach to funding education, as well the state requirement for districts to levy a property tax of at least 20 mills to receive state aid. This minimum tax rate generates billions for districts—more in high-wealth ones—and is a crucial element that ensures public schools receive sufficient baseline funding. Lawmakers should provide a more complete picture of districts’ overall foundation aid by requiring both direct state support and revenues generated on the 20 mill tax to appear on their report card. In addition to providing more clarity about how Ohio provides sufficient base funding, this would ease concerns that scholarships are being funded at higher levels than public schools’ total foundation funding. 

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Ohio’s private school scholarship programs have provided countless families with the financial support needed to access private schools. In the next budget, state lawmakers should seize the opportunity to further advance choice while also working to protect the opportunities that so many Ohio families rely on to find a school that best meets their child’s needs.