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Bill to expand school vouchers called attack on public schools  
November 21, 2011 

Local opponents of a bill that would expand private school vouchers in Ohio are calling it an extreme measure and an attack on public education. 

State Rep. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), officials of Toledo Public Schools, union leaders, and Toledo Board of Education members assailed House Bill 136 and called for its defeat. The bill expands school vouchers to all school districts, regardless of academic performance, and eventually would give funding to students already in private schools. 

The the bill’s opponents, who gathered Friday at Martin Luther King, Jr., Academy for Boys on Forest Avenue, said the bill would divert needed funds from public schools to private institutions that can reject students, setting up a two-tiered school system that might violate the Ohio Constitution. 

“When we destroy public education, we are destroying the fabric of this nation,” said Ms. Fedor, a former Toledo Public Schools teacher. 

Under Ohio’s current law, students are eligible for a voucher only if their public school has been rated in academic emergency or academic watch for two of the past three years. The new bill would eliminate those academic restrictions and allow anyone to be eligible for vouchers on a sliding scale, as long as their family income was less than $95,000. 

Bill opponents argued Friday that private schools can reject students, and the new bill would possibly leave public schools with less money for special education students and those with behavioral problems, who are often more expensive to educate. 

“Where is the equal, free school system for all?” board member Brenda Hill asked. “We will lose it.” 

Board Vice President Lisa Sobecki said that both Ohio’s current voucher law and the proposed bill do not follow the original intent of vouchers, which was to give students in underperforming schools options for better schools. She said the current law does not ensure that vouchers are used for better schools. 

State data on the academic performance of voucher students are limited; unlike with public schools, private schools are not rated on annual state report cards. The only data the state provides are how voucher students across entire districts performed. According to that data, voucher students in Toledo performed below the public school averages, though they likely scored higher than students who remained in underperforming schools. It’s impossible to determine with available data, however, whether those improvements are because the private schools performed better, or whether higher-performing students are using the vouchers. 

Ms. Sobecki said that the bill, which has passed out of the state House education committee, should not be voted on. 

“If you vote on it, vote it down,” she said. 

Proponents of the voucher expansion said that parents in underperforming districts should have more choice in what schools their children attend. 

State Rep. Barbara Sears (R., Monclova Township) said that while current data on the voucher program are limited, there’s enough data to show that state officials should look for alternatives to the status quo, instead of waiting on incremental growth by public schools. 

“We do have data that says the current system isn’t working for children,” Ms. Sears said. “We can’t just wait for perfection to roll by.” 

She said that the bill is undergoing revisions to address concerns raised by educators, such as the elimination of an academic requirement for the program. 

The Catholic Conference of Ohio supports the bill, said Christopher Knight, superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Toledo. 

“We support school choice. The legislation reaches out to lower-income and middle-class families. It’s about choice and access,” he said. 

He said it would be hard to speculate how popular the vouchers would become. Mr. Knight said the current voucher law, known as Ed Choice, has 30,000 slots available statewide and is used by about 17,000 students. 

“If you look around the country, the school choice program is growing,” Mr. Knight said. 

He rejected the implication that vouchers would create an elite system, saying Catholic schools want to be inclusive for all. 

Asked if he feared the loss of independence from increased reliance on state funds, Mr. Knight said that the church schools already accept some strings attached to the Ed Choice program. 

Students who attend school with voucher assistance must take the Ohio Achievement Assessment, while other students do not. 

“We are mindful that there might be strings. We would never compromise the faith in exchange for government funding,” Mr. Knight said. 

Opponents called on Stan Heffner, state superintendent of public instruction, to take a public position on the bill. 

Education department spokesman Dennis Evans responded that because the State Board of Education has not taken a position, the department had nothing to add. 

Ms. Fedor said she would hold town meetings throughout the area to continue to attack the bill. 

Staff writer Tom Troy contributed to this report. 

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