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Private School Vouchers Costing Ohio’s Public Schools $330
Million
As the American Legislative
Exchange Council opens its annual policy summit today,
one of ALEC’s major agenda
items -- diverting public school dollars to private school
vouchers -- is having a big impact in Ohio, with $330
million being drained from public schools for vouchers this
year
“For years, Ohio Republicans
-- with the backing of big-money donors like Betsy DeVos --
have been pushing a privatization agenda, designed to take
away resources from our public schools to fund private
school vouchers and for-profit charter schools like the
Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which scammed taxpayers
out of millions,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David
Pepper. “Led by privatization cheerleader Matt Huffman, the
Ohio GOP
included a provision in this
year’s budget that put the state voucher program on
steroids, leading to a huge expansion in spending on private
schools, at the expense of our public schools. In Parma,
that has led to $2 million being taken away from the
district’s schools.
In Wilmington schools in Clinton
County, they’re spending nearly $400,000 more on private
school vouchers.
In North College Hill in Hamilton
County, the public schools are losing more than $500,ooo
more to vouchers.
This hurts our public schools --
and there is little evidence it helps students because
research has found in state after state, including in Ohio,
that voucher recipients often underperform on standardized
tests.
“In the wake of the ECOT
scandal, as Ohio taxpayers are still waiting for the scam
online charter school to repay more than $100 million they
owe, we should not be wasting more money on dubious
education schemes.”
Under President Donald
Trump, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has waged an all-out
war on public schools, continuing her decades-long agenda of
promoting privatization schemes and for-profit charter
schools.
Huffman has pushed for a
statewide expansion of vouchers in every school district, no
matter how well the local schools perform. |
