The boards and superintendents of Ohio’s public schools rarely raise a protest as unified as their response to House Bill 136. The legislation, introduced by state Rep. Matt Huffman early this year, seeks to recast the school voucher program. In the attempt, the Lima Republican badly overreached, equally alarming low-performing districts and high-achieving suburban districts.
Huffman responded Monday to the intense and justified criticisms. He scaled back measures that promised to be most damaging to districts — and to public education in general.
Gov. John Kasich and the state legislature vastly expanded school-choice options in the current state budget, among other measures nearly quadrupling the number of vouchers available in the Educational Choice program. The expansion preserved, nonetheless, the narrow focus to provide access to private schools for low-income students attending persistently failing schools — those designated in Academic Watch or Academic Emergency for two of the past three years.
For his part, Huffman proposed extending the program beyond academically challenged districts to apply to all districts, regardless of quality. Further, the bill would have raised eligibility for state funding to include households earning incomes up to $95,000 a year, far above anything viewed as low-income. The funds, up to $4,626 a year per student, would be deducted from state aid to the home district and could be used for tuition in any private school. Particularly disturbing, the bill would have permitted families to keep in a savings account for college and other education expenses all excess scholarship funds. Such generosity — at a time districts are slashing budgets to stay afloat.
As school officials have argued, the bill posed a devastating threat to school finances. Wealthier districts that receive little or no state aid, including Woodridge and others in Summit County, contended they would end up subsidizing private education with local tax revenues.
With even Republican legislators growing leery of the expansive bill, Huffman has tried to save H.B. 136. Gone, for instance, is the egregious provision for a savings account; districts would keep the excess funds. Eligibility for vouchers would be tied to Medicaid standards. The scholarship amount would be limited to state-aid spending per-pupil in a district, the number of vouchers capped at 1 percent of a district’s enrollment.
Given the dramatic increase in vouchers already in state law, the pertinent question is whether H.B. 136 is necessary at all.
