The new Ohio universal voucher scheme will heap harm on the public common school immediately and eventually on the private schools.
The public common school system is the choice the state is required to fund pursuant to the Ohio Constitution. The universal vouchers scheme is the choice of the Senate President, his comrades in high places, and his fellow congregants who share his passion for the use of public tax dollars for religious instruction in private schools. These voucher advocates have created an education framework that will essentially eliminate the compulsory attendance laws of Ohio. This framework creates an education caste system. Private schools will refuse to enroll the most vulnerable students, and public schools will not have sufficient funds to appropriately educate these children; hence the most vulnerable will not have the opportunity for a high-quality education as was the case prior to the choice spectacle.
The advent of universal vouchers will incentivize tuition rates to sky-rocket in bona fide private schools and give rise to second class fly-by-night education entities that will deliver education on-the-cheap, which entities will cater to low-income communities.
The higher income folks receiving vouchers will be prone to pay the higher tuition rates. Substandard, mediocre “schools” that pop-up will provide a mere shell of educational opportunities for those who are on the bottom rungs of the income ladder. These newly-minted inferior-class schools will spur a call for the government to regulate private schools. Regulations will cause many of the long-standing authentic private schools to lose the identity and distinctiveness for which those schools were created.
The universal voucher advocates have created a monster that will heap harm on both the public common school system and private schools.
Learn about EdChoice Vouchers: An Existential Threat to Public Schools
VOUCHERS HURT OHIO