The Ohio Legislature's budget, now on Ohio Governor Mike DeWine's desk, has set aside $2.475 billion to pay for vouchers for students to attend private schools over the next two years, the most the state's ever spent on the program.
The budget calls for $437 million more for the EdChoice Scholarship and related private-school voucher programs compared to the last biennial budget, according to Legislative Service Commission data. In total, the state's spending on voucher programs has more than doubled since the 2022-2023 state budget; the state expanded access to vouchers dramatically in the 2024-2025 budget.
Yitz Frank, president of School Choice Ohio, a nonprofit that advocates for expanded school options, supports more money going to school vouchers. He said School Choice Ohio was disappointed there was no increase put into the budget for the total voucher amount each family can receive, however. Currently, families making at or below 450% of the poverty line can receive a $6,166 scholarship for students in grades K–8 and a $8,408 scholarship for grades 9-12; families earning above that amount can still get some portion of the total scholarship.
Frank said the state funding vouchers is a matter of fairness to taxpayers.
"The dollars that are spent, we believe, needs to follow a child no matter where they go," he said. "This fair school funding formula does a pretty good job of driving dollars towards actual students. And so when a student were to leave or choose to go to a non-public school, making sure that state dollars follow them, we think is a really important policy."
He said the state is projecting a "significant amount" of students going to private schools in the future, hence the increase in state support. The number of students attending private schools has increased since the state expanded support for vouchers, from 168,000 in October 2022 to about 180,000 in October 2024, according to Ohio Department of Education data. One study, however, has suggested the increase in voucher use has mainly been driven by students who already were attending private school.
Of the almost two million students that attend Ohio public, private and charter schools, Ohio Department of Education data shows 90% attend "public" schools as of 2024, although that number does include charter schools. The total number of students attending public schools in Ohio drops to around 80% when excluding charter schools and including about 50,000 homeschooled students, according to The Fordham Foundation.
Piet van Lier, senior researcher at Policy Matters Ohio, a nonprofit research institute, raised concerns about a new $35.1 million program included in the budget that will provide an "educational savings accounts" to families, which van Lier likened to a voucher, for "non-chartered private schools." Those are private schools that in the past have not had access to Ohio's school voucher system because they've declined to accept certain regulations from the state due to religious beliefs.
"Most problematic for Ohio families and children, the vast majority of whom rely on public schools, along with the communities they live in, is that the Conference Committee decided to include the House proposal for a non-chartered non-public voucher program (formally known as an educational savings account) that can be used to pay tuition at private schools that have avoided regulation and accountability because of their 'truly held religious beliefs,'" van Lier said in an email Thursday.
Gov. Mike DeWine will need to sign the budget, along with any potential line-item vetoes, by Monday, June 30.
