As Ohio legislators shortchange public education, they may make vouchers more transparent

The recently introduced House Bill 715 would increase accessibility to data about publicly funded voucher programs and the nonpublic schools they support. It would do so by standardizing the data and publishing it in a central location, making it easier for Ohioans to understand the impact of vouchers on public school enrollment, and evaluate the performance of voucher-funded private schools.

H.B. 715 will require the Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) to annually publish data from participating schools, including the amount of state voucher funding the school receives and the number of voucher students they enroll. Crucially, voucher participation data would be reported by family income level, helping the public better understand the income distribution of families who benefit from Ohio’s five voucher programs: EdChoice, EdChoice Expansion, the Autism Scholarship, the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program, and the Cleveland Scholarship Program.

DEW would also report the type of school or district attended by participating students in the previous year. “We know that in the 2023-24 school year, Ohio gave out nearly 69,000 new EdChoice Expansion vouchers, while private school enrollment grew by just 3,700 students,” said Policy Matters Executive Director Hannah Halbert. “That means approximately 65,000 vouchers went to families already sending their children to private schools. H.B. 715 would make those numbers more precise and accessible to Ohioans who deserve to know whether these voucher programs serve people who really need the help.”

The bill also instructs DEW to create a system that allows people to compare academic performance data for voucher students in private schools with similar students attending nearby public schools. The goal is to make it easier for families and the public to review outcomes in a consistent and accessible format, similar to the state report cards that public schools receive each year.

“In the last state budget, legislators failed to fully fund public schools to the tune of $2.75 billion. At the same time the private voucher system’s budget grew to $2.4 billion,” Halbert said. “Ultimately, the state must honor its constitutional obligations to public schools and confront the fact that it cannot fund two separate systems of education. Until then, this bill would bring a measure of much needed transparency for parents and accountability to the taxpayers to a system that operates largely without either.”