COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio has received far fewer applications than the number of vouchers available for transferring students to private schools from poor-performing public ones.
Although 30,000 vouchers were offered, The Columbus Dispatch reports only more than 17,000 requests for vouchers were turned in by this past Monday's deadline. A provision in the state budget signed at the end of June offered a 16,000 voucher increase of the private school scholarships.
A representative of Join the Future, an advocacy group for public schools and public school teachers, claims the response shows there isn't much demand for vouchers. But the head of pro-voucher group School Choice Ohio says that no one thought the 30,000 cap would be reached this year.