It’s been 25 years since the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the state school funding mechanism that relies on property taxes unconstitutional. In nearly a generation, lawmakers have given us a mix of half-baked plans that don’t go nearly far enough in fixing a very complex issue.
School funding isn’t easy. But the voucher program, EdChoice, isn’t the answer in its current iteration. Neither is denying school districts the right to challenge property tax valuations.
Let’s start with vouchers. If Democrats created vouchers, Republicans would yell they were pushing a socialist transfer of wealth. That’s what happens in our current system. Parents can use property tax money — funds that don’t belong to them — and send their child to a private entity.
Proponents frame vouchers as an issue of parental choice. It is not. In reality, this is an issue of parental desire.
Parents can send their children anywhere to school or homeschool them. There is no limit to the choice. The real issue has always been economics, which is no different than any other aspect of life. If a parent wants a Toyota but is driving a Ford, the government doesn’t step in to pay for that upgrade. If someone on Medicaid doesn’t like their insurance, the state doesn’t write you a check to go find the plan you prefer.
But instead of trying to fix the system, lawmakers tell parents it’s OK to send their child to an unregulated private school that may be worse than the current one. It punts the problem and simply fuels parental desire.
Instead of punting, fix it. The Lincoln Institute has a number of ideas on how to fund schools. But, as it notes, they’re politically unpopular since they involve creating revenue streams through sales or other taxes. Lawmakers aren’t doing the politically unpopular, especially when it comes to figuring out how to raise $11 billion in revenue annually to pay for schools.
And since that’s the case — and we keep electing them, for some reason — then we need to look at other common-sense avenues to slowly solve the problem. None are politically appealing.
First, stop sending property tax dollars on unregulated private entities. That’s a hard sell as Republicans make political hay out of “parent choice’ — I mean, desire.
So lawmakers should talk to charters and see if any have interest in a state pilot project that would make them pubic, high-performing destinations for students. Students would have to test into these schools and maintain a minimum grade point average. If they don’t, they go back to their neighborhood school. Maybe this is a dumb idea, but it’s an idea.
Yes, those schools exist in Ohio. Yes, I can hear the wails of “but it’s a public school” that slaps lipstick on a pig. But if you rethink education from top to bottom — leadership, teachers, curriculum, structure — there’s no reason we can’t create new public schools that use tax dollars to give students the education they deserve.
But that won’t fly because it’s politically unpopular. So, at a minimum, we need to scale back the voucher program only for students with excellent (85% in all classes or above?) grades in underperforming public schools. We shouldn’t let bad schools keep good students back. And, I’m sorry, “I don’t like the school” isn’t a good reason to transfer a student on the taxpayer’s dime.
It’s the height of hypocrisy for lawmakers to refuse to fix the system but tell school districts they can’t find additional funds through reevaluation or property taxes — the unconstitutional funding mechanism we refuse to fix because we don’t have the stomach.
Cut back vouchers. Leave school districts alone, for now. And then, do your job.
Ray Marcano is a longtime journalist whose column appears on these pages each Sunday. He can be reached at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com.
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