***UPDATE*** January 29, 2020

In a late-night session, Senators voted in favor of House Bill 9.

The majority agreed to roll back ODE's reinterpretation of a law that allowed all high school students to get a voucher if they never attended an eligible EdChoice public school. As a result, the amendment would only allow students up to 9th grade to qualify for the vouchers instead of all students.

  • The state would give $30 million to districts who lost money to vouchers this year
  • Schools would be eliminated from the EdChoice eligibility list for the next three years if they got an A,B or C grade overall on the most recent report card
  • For families hoping to get a voucher for next year, the senate agreed to raise the income eligibility threshold to 300% of the poverty level and allow families to apply for a voucher through another program
  • Buildings with a 'D' but not at the bottom 20% of the performance index in two of the last three years, could get off the eligibility list.

Now that the senate has voted, it's left up to the house to make a final decision.

Part 1 of a 4-part series "Making the Grade: The Public Cost of Private Education"

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The clock is ticking for legislators to make a decision about adjustments made last summer to EdChoice Scholarships. The application process begins February 1.

It's no secret that school choice and vouchers can be tense subjects among many circles here in Ohio. The only difference now is that legislators are under pressure to come up with a quick solution that will address issues boiling over since last summer, before the application period begins.

While there are a number of issues at hand, here's a look at ones that appear to be at the top of the list right now: ​

Problem 1: More than double the number of schools have been added to the EdChoice eligible school list since 2018 and double that is expected to be added to that list next school year. Overall, that's a jump from 238 to 1227 schools deemed as underperforming.

Problem 2: Schools currently on the EdChoice eligibility list were added recently based on report card grades dating as far back as 2012, even though some schools have improved. Up until last year, those failing schools were protected by a safe harbor. That safe harbor prevented them from being named EdChoice schools and did not allow the state to use 2014-2017 report card grades to determine EdChoice eligibility. 

Problem 3: The Ohio Department of Education reinterpreted language of a law so that it now allows kids in eighth grade and up to get an EdChoice voucher, even if they never attended an eligible public school in their district. So far, it's produced a 75% increase in high school applications statewide. Previously, a child had to be enrolled in an eligible district school before getting a voucher.

Problem 4: Public school chief financial officers in the state say they cannot forecast budgets accurately, since they do not know how many students will receive vouchers and enroll ahead of time as a result of the reinterpretation.

Problem 5: State funding is frozen. Education advocates say new voucher recipients for this school year were not included in their district enrollment. Regardless, frozen funding means that districts do not receive additional money for any student, old or new. It also means that all districts are operating on the last school year's budget. 

Problem 6: It costs a district $6,000 for each high school student who receives an EdChoice voucher to go to a private school and it's $4,650 for those in elementary and middle grades.

Problem 7: Districts say they were already strapped and aren't clear why they're paying a full voucher amount when they don't receive that much from the state per student. Education department officials and state senators could only explain that "it's the law."

Those issues only scratch the surface of problems swirling around EdChoice right now. As legislators try to come up with a fix, Spectrum News 1 talked with Senator Matt Huffman (R-12), a proponent of EdChoice vouchers. 

Huffman agrees some of the schools put on the state's underperforming list were inappropriate to an extent, but says that's why he worked on Senate Bill 85 back 2017. The bill was slated to scale back vouchers and would have avoided some of the current problems. So now he's proposing pieces of that legislation again.

"What I've suggested is that we start to step away from the performance based school rule and more towards a need based system," said Huffman. He added that local districts wouldn't be paying, since it would be an income based state program, where the state could control the growth of vouchers.

Opponents from the Ohio Association of School Business Officials said Huffman's proposal would only increase the amount of money for vouchers and make matters worse. While Huffman knows something has to be done, he isn't willing to roll back criteria fully that opened the door for a flood of applicants this year. He said, "I'm not willing to simply look at a bunch of people who have relied on what the law is, toss them overboard and say sorry without finding some place for them to land."

However, OASBO and a number of other organizations want the policy from House Bill 166 repealed. Ultimately, legislators have just days to make a decision.

"We probably need to look and see how it is that we can get these folks...most of them taken care of. There's not gonna be a perfect solution,"said Huffman.

While Huffman believes that the criteria for vouchers needs to be scaled back considerably, he didn't specify how. OASBO, the Buckeye Association of School Administrators and the Ohio School Boards Association say they object to ODE's reinterpretation of the law and want funding restored to districts for the cost of the new EdChoice voucher recipients.