Saturday Stats

$95M: Total cuts to special education funding if the budget proposed by Gov. DeWine passes. A new factsheet from Policy Matters reveals how the Executive Budget manipulates cost estimates and property-tax data to shift responsibility for school funding onto local districts. See if your district is among the 349 that would see a funding cut under Gov. DeWine’s proposal, and then tell your state legislators to protect education for all our kids!  

69,000: Updated total new EdChoice Expansion vouchers given out during the 2023-24 school year.  

3,700: Updated amount by which private school enrollment increased that year. That means some 65,000 vouchers went to households that were already paying for private school without public assistance. 

132: Number of legislative-district-specific factsheets we’ve released describing the harm done to our public schools by private-school vouchers. That’s one for every state House district and state Senate district! That way, you’ll have local data at your fingertips when you call your state Rep and state Senator to say, “Keep public money in public schools.” (Not sure which districts are yours? Use this tool.) 

6: Number of times in the past two weeks Policy Matters staff have delivered in-person or written testimony on the state budget to House committees. That includes: Hannah Halbert on K-12 funding, Kathryn Poe on Medicaid, Bailey Williams on tax policy, Heather Smith on childcare, Piet van Lier on higher ed, and Bailey Sandin on the Unemployment Compensation IT system. The big one though is House Finance, where Zach Schiller will run through our top priorities for the 2026-27 budget, all in under three minutes! The committee is scheduled to meet at 10:30 on Tuesday, March 11th. You can watch the proceedings live on the Ohio Channel’s feed. 

Policy Matters was instrumental in passing 2006’s Issue 2, a constitutional amendment to raise Ohio’s minimum wage. Before it was on the ballot, the wage increase had a legislative champion in PMO founding board member C.J. Prentiss. In support of C.J.’s legislation, founding Executive Director Amy Hanauer co-authored this instant classic with PMO intern Hee Yon Sohng. When the legislature failed to act, the people of Ohio stepped up, passing State Issue 2: The Ohio Minimum Wage Amendment by a 13-point margin, raising the wage to $6.85, indexing it to inflation so it retains purchasing power over time, and helping roughly 330,000 low-paid Ohioans every year. 

Watchlist 

Ohio’s 136th General Assembly is in session and we’re keeping tabs on the good, bad, and ugly legislation our elected representatives in Columbus are working on. Here are three to watch. For our full list, visit our website. Please call or email your state legislators and tell them to support, oppose, or amend these bills. 

HB 7 would make foster caregivers and kinship caregivers eligible for publicly funded childcare (PFCC) regardless of their income, if they work or are enrolled in an education or training program. We support this bill. Of course, we think way more people should qualify for PFCC, and we recommend other improvements as well. Foster and kinship families are a good start.  

SB 68 would establish “Education Savings Accounts” — vouchers by another name — using public funding to pay for private-school tuition and other education expenses. The funds could even be used at the non-chartered, nonpublic schools that are currently unqualified to accept vouchers. (Only chartered nonpublic schools can take vouchers right now.) Legislators should see this bill for what it is: another attempt to defund public schools that serve all students, and pour more money into private schools that pick and choose — and exclude students they don’t want to accept. 

SB 44 would expand vouchers even more, allowing households to take both a general education voucher — like EdChoice Expansion — and either the Autism or Special Ed voucher, which are capped at just over $30K, with no income limits for families. For all the reasons vouchers hurt Ohio schools, legislators should reject this one too. 

Action items 

Tell your state legislators to protect education for all our kids!  

Join Ohio Federation of Teachers’ letter-writing campaign to resist federal attacks on students, schools, and education.  

Redditors: Check out r/OhioBudget, where we’re ready to build a community around all our budget-related work! (Not sure what a Redditor even is? That’s OK—You’re invited too! 

Check out Honesty for Ohio Education’s Testimony Toolkit for speaking out against SB 1, which would undermine faculty unions; ban content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and double down on culture-war restrictions. 

Clevelanders and cinephiles: Check out Driver at the Cleveland Film Festival. We’re proud to be a community partner for this documentary about women who are long-haul truckers. Tickets go on sale to the public March 14th. (They are on sale now for CIFF members!) Use the code POLICY at checkout to get $1 off each ticket!