蜜桃影视

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter

A new bipartisan bill would require more transparency for Ohio private schools receiving Education Choice and Education Choice Expansion vouchers.

Ohio Sens. Kent Smith, D-Euclid, and Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township, recently introduced , also known as the Take the Dough, We Gotta Know Act.

鈥淭he key point with this piece of legislation is that if you are going to take state dollars, there has to be a degree of transparency and oversight,鈥� Blessing said.

鈥淭his is a cornerstone of conservative philosophy in this state, where we have a program 鈥� and we have oversight over something like that. This is no different.鈥�

The bill would require Ohio鈥檚 auditor to audit the funds of each school that is using EdChoice and EdChoice expansion vouchers each fiscal year.

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce would be required to create a report card for chartered non-public schools in order to 鈥渉opefully get an apples-to-apples comparison,鈥� Blessing said.

Schools accepting EdChoice vouchers would have to submit weekly attendance records, conduct criminal background checks of its employees, report the tuition and fees charged by the school in a five-year cost trend, report how many of their students have an Individualized Education Program, and publish their dropout and graduation rates.

鈥淭he current voucher system is doing two things 鈥� providing tuition coupons for wealthy Ohio families to be able to send their children to private schools, and it鈥檚 underfunding Ohio鈥檚 public school districts with drastic ramifications for Ohio students,鈥� Smith said.

Lawmakers increased the EdChoice expansion eligibility to 450% of the poverty line in 2023 through the state budget 鈥� creating near-universal school vouchers.

This means K-8 students can receive a $6,166 scholarship and high schoolers can receive a $8,408 scholarship in state funding under the expansion.

Ohio spent more than a for the 2025 fiscal year, the second full year with near-universal eligibility. Nearly half of the money 鈥� $492.8 million 鈥� was from the EdChoice expansion.

鈥淲hy on earth would we spend billions of Ohioans鈥� hard-earned money on schools that don鈥檛 have to provide that level of transparency and accountability 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 make any sense,鈥� said Ohio House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati. 鈥淚t鈥檚 what taxpayers deserve, that there would be accountability and transparency into all schools that receive public dollars.鈥�

Students in some counties don鈥檛 have the option to attend a private school.

鈥淢any of us barely know what vouchers are because we simply don鈥檛 have private schools,鈥� said Ohio Rep. Justin Pizzulli, R-Scioto County. 鈥淥ur best schools are our only schools, and those schools are public schools.鈥�

Carroll, Champaign, Hardin, Harrison, Holmes, Meigs, Morgan, Noble, Preble and Vinton counties had .

Pizzulli said rural Ohio is frustrated with how schools are funded.

鈥淲e see our tax dollars supporting a voucher system that largely benefits areas with access to private schools, while communities like mine receive no or little practical benefit at all because those options don鈥檛 exist,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen vouchers were expanded, many of us were told, well, private schools would begin magically appearing and popping up all over the state, that simply has not happened.鈥�

Nonpublic Ohio schools had 181,244 students enrolled in fiscal year 2025 鈥� a 4.6% increase compared to fiscal year 2024.

鈥淲hat frustrates us is seeing our taxpayer dollars increasingly flow towards families who already had the means to afford private tuition, and so we鈥檙e just asking for fairness,鈥� Pizzulli said.

The lawmakers stressed Ohioans deserve to know how their tax dollars are being used.

鈥淭he taxpayers deserve to know where the money is going, who is benefiting, and whether the investment is producing results,鈥� Pizzulli said.

Cleveland Heights Teachers Union President Karen Rego said her district is expected to lose $7 million over the next two years in layoffs and other cutbacks.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 know where that鈥檚 going to happen, we feel very stretched thin already, and to lose staff members that we鈥檝e lost this year, and the possibility of losing more next year is a really tough pill to swallow,鈥� she said.

Rego is not against people choosing what school they go to, but wants to see more accountability as far as how the taxpayer money is being spent.

This bill is being introduced late in the General Assembly 鈥� any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered.

鈥淚f it goes nowhere in this General Assembly, or even next, that isn鈥檛 the point,鈥� Blessing said. 鈥淲e have identified a major problem here. We also have a solution.鈥�

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, questioned how serious the senators are about this bill since they waited until now to introduce it.

鈥淥nce that money goes to those private organizations, we don鈥檛 audit that, and I think if we鈥檙e going to come up with a scheme where something like that would happen, we need to make sure that the privacy part of it for people 鈥� kids and families going to school, and the people running the school 鈥� all of those things are intact,鈥� he said.

More than 300 public school districts are suing over EdChoice. A trial judge ruled last summer that the program was unconstitutional, but a this month before the 10th District Court of Appeals.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: [email protected].

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.