Billions of Dollars are Being Sent to Private Schools With No Accountability
Although using public funds to support private schools is prohibited by Ohio’s constitution, Republican lawmakers ignore this fact and send billions of our tax dollars to private and religious schools while Ohio public schools deal with the fallout of a $3 billion budget shortfall.
And this is happening without any transparency, accountability, and oversight of $2.5 billion of our money that is being handed over by state legislators to private schools and religious institutions.
Now, a bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers want to change this and have introduced a proposal that would dramatically increase transparency over Ohio’s private school voucher programs. Ohio Senate Bill 443 would audit how state dollars are spent in two of the state’s private school voucher programs, create report cards for academic performance, and require students to take the same end-of-course exams that public schools mandate.
After all, taxpayers are taking a risk on investment. It hasn’t always worked out well. Ohio taxpayers were ripped off by hundreds of millions of dollars when the ECOT for-profit, private online charter school scheme crashed and burned in 2018.
As a concept, it seems like a no-brainer that $2.5 billion in Ohio taxpayer money deserves transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, this is not a no-brainer for Ohio’s GOP Speaker of the House Matt Huffman.