Darrel Rowland, ABC6 (WSYX6) and Fox28 News tweets about vouchers
Darrel Rowland, a former Columbus Dispatch reporter, public affairs editor and senior editor, gleaning data from Howard Fleeter’s June 2023 Policy Brief on Vouchers in Ohio, in a series of Tweets, sheds light on the trend in income level of voucher users. The data show that the percentage of low-income EdChoice voucher users has dropped from 32% in 2014 to 15% in 2023. The State Budget for fiscal years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 will ratchet-up EdChoice voucher expansion. In the future, EdChoice voucher users will be mostly in the higher income brackets. Low-income students were exploited by voucher advocates to get the voucher foot-in-the-door. Universal vouchers will result in higher private school tuition, which will eliminate voucher participation for nearly all low income students.
1:38PM | June 5, 2023
School-funding numbers cruncher extraordinaire Howard Fleeter looks at Ohio’s vouchers Two main findings:
1. Originally intended to help students at low-performing public schools ‘escape,’ vouchers are now benefiting a growing number of students already attending private schools
2. Percentage of low-income students assisted through these programs has significantly declined while more students in wealthy families are accessing vouchers Fleeter, consultant for public schools groups, concludes that recent GOP legislative changes “reflect a pronounced “change in the focus of Ohio’s voucher programs from one of expanding opportunity to one where the state simply pays for vouchers for students whose families have already demonstrated that they have the means to afford private school”
In FY 2014, 35% of one (Cleveland-style) voucher program’s recipients were from low-income backgrounds, but by FY 2023, this number had decreased to 7%. For another (EdChoice), the percentage of low-income students receiving vouchers dropped from 32% in FY 2014 to 15% in FY 2023
Learn about EdChoice Vouchers: An Existential Threat to Public Schools
VOUCHERS HURT OHIO