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A Preferential Option

Ohio’s biennial budget process is nearing completion; following its introduction by the Governor, and revisions by the Ohio House, the budget bill, HB 96, is now with the Senate. In education, the Ohio Senate is considering how to balance the needs of all Ohio students, including the third phase of the Fair School Funding Plan’s recommendations for traditional public districts, as well as the enhancements to school choice, in which more Ohioans continue to participate. After four consecutive years of enrollment growth, our Catholic schools are more diverse than ever with regard to race, religion, socioeconomic status, and learning needs. That diversity is both a strength and a sacred responsibility that we take seriously. I have written before about poverty and its effects on educational outcomes. One request in the budget that would be of benefit to students and schools alike is to extend Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid (DPIA) to qualifying students attending chartered nonpublic schoo...
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One Billion Dollars

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Haven’t you heard? Ohio is spending  a billion dollars  on private school choice! Numbers had been moving as the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce finalized the reconciliation of the fiscal year. They appear to have settled, showing that Ohio provided $962 million in payments to just over  150,000 state scholarship students  in all 5 programs for school year 2024, an average of just over $6,500 per FTE. Film buffs of a certain age may remember the   Austin Powers   movies from the 1990s, where super spy Powers and his nemesis Dr. Evil, both played by comedian Mike Myers, square off in the modern day after being frozen since the 1960s. In one scene Dr. Evil threatens to hold the world hostage for… “one MILLION dollars!” And that’s the gag – his evil henchmen have to point out that it “isn't exactly a lot of money these days.” Over a century ago, Mark Twain popularized the phrase about three kinds of lies: “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Today i...
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