[Note: What follows is an email I received from Vouchers Hurt Ohio, an organization advocating for public education in the State of Ohio.]
Good Tuesday morning,
Can Ohio truly afford to spend more than $1 billion a year on private school vouchers at a time when the state is underfunding public schools and local taxpayers are being asked to pony up even more by passing levies?
The answer is no, no, no, but that is not stopping extreme anti-public school lawmakers who are taking their marching orders from out-of-state interests and the Center for Christian Virtue from passing a $1 billion-plus boondoggle.
Reporters in Ohio in recent weeks got their hands on the Legislative Service Commission’s (LSC) estimates for the cost of the “backpack bill,” known as House Bill 11.
Here are three stories to read about the billion dollar boondoggle.
The LSC is a non-partisan agency that examines the costs of proposed laws.
The LSC fiscal note says expenditures would increase $1.13 billion in the first year if all 185,400 students already paying for private schools, for nonchartered nonpublic schools and those being homeschooled ask for vouchers.
And why wouldn’t they? Because the state will give them up to $7,500 high school students.
This is why we have been saying that the private school voucher program is a refund and a rebate scheme for parents who already enrolled their children in private schools and never had any intention of enrolling in public schools.
House Bill 11, according to the LSC fiscal note, also would give money to families for homeschooling their children.
Now do you think there will be sufficient oversight to ensure these dollars are being spent to educate these children? Have these lawmakers never heard of ECOT?
We have one recourse. Win in the court of law.
This is why we are suing because this has to stop.
No one among these anti-public school lawmakers are asking what is going to happen to the 90 percent of students who are enrolled in public schools? Who is looking out for them?
It doesn’t get any more real than this.
Join our lawsuit today by clicking here.
Sincerely,
Vouchers Hurt Ohio
Welcome to ED253 School & Society -- Dr. David Shutkin 