The Enemy
School choice is not the enemy of public schools; rather, it is a component of “public education,” the ideal in the State Board of Education’s vision that all Ohioans “graduate from the PK-12 education system with the knowledge, skills and behaviors necessary” for continued education or the workforce. This position, long held by the Catholic Church, is also the basis for Ohio’s scholarship programs that provide vouchers to students disadvantaged by low income, assignment to underperforming public schools, or diagnosed special needs. Every student who attends on a voucher -- all children of taxpaying Ohioans -- represents a savings to the state due to the efficiency of nonpublic schools.
Some opponents have been grasping for reasons to protest, like a recent example in the Cincinnati Enquirer, reprinted around the state, that employed some crude comparisons to conclude that state voucher programs were not performing better than public schools on state tests and therefore not living up to expectations. The analysis stated that “five of the largest districts — Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Toledo — fared better academically than their local private school rivals, by margins ranging from slight to decisive” when they compared the average of every student in the public district to the average of only those on state scholarship, students who became eligible by their low-income status or their assignment to poorly performing public schools. The analysis, which our rebuttal dubbed an “apples-to-blueberries” comparison, was flawed, but the question is worth examining.
Let us consider Cleveland, where every family has access to the Cleveland scholarship, and where the public district’s improvement strategy is anchored in public school choice. The chart below shows each Catholic elementary school and its geographically closest public elementary from the same year the Enquirer studied. The differences are striking, but not so much by school type as by location. What could be happening here?
Poverty Is The Enemy
There is a long-established and well-known association between poverty and academic achievement. Despite some bright exceptions, the schools on the chart with the lowest performance - Catholic and traditional public - are in neighborhoods among the lowest in socioeconomic status. And, though no one is restricted by their zip code, Catholic elementary schools are largely neighborhood schools that serve their communities, especially in Cleveland and its neighborhoods that are among the most segregated in the country by race and socioeconomic status. In the most recent Census data, Cleveland had the highest poverty rate among U.S. cities. In Cleveland’s Catholic elementary schools, 81.1% of students qualify for federal Title I and free/reduced lunch program, and 4.8% are limited English proficient.
As noted in the last post, the resources available to Catholic schools are already typically less than half of what public schools spend, with Cleveland’s public schools spending an average of $17,674 per pupil in the city, and the nonpublic schools receiving an average of $5,118 for the same students when they partake in the choice program. This inequity will grow if the $1.1 billion for student wellness in the state budget introduced by the governor remains unavailable to students in nonpublic schools. The funds are weighted heavier for schools with higher childhood poverty rates, but are only available for district and charter schools. Nonpublic school students, regardless of their household poverty or other associated factors, receive no benefit of this funding.
The chart below shows the most recent data of how much taxpayers invested per pupil in the schools that achieved the results of the chart above.
Rethinking State Funding
The challenges of poverty are reflected in Ohio’s current school funding of traditional public and charter school students, as well as the state scholarship programs that are transfers in the school funding formula. The new Fair Funding Plan (current HB 1) proposes an overhaul of state education funding, featuring a new formula and increases to that formula’s base funding -- the starting amount before all of the multipliers and adjustments -- to an average of $7,199 per pupil, up from the current amount of $6,020, changes that are estimated to cost taxpayers $2 billion annually. For all of the increased investment in education in HB1, there is no proposed increase for state scholarship programs, only a change to the mechanism that funds them but keeps current limits in place.
For this investment to be worthy of its authors’ claim to be “fair to all students and fair to all taxpayers,” we believe the next funding model must:
Increase the maximum dollar amounts awarded per pupil in the Cleveland, Edchoice, and EdChoice Expansion scholarships.
Maintain overall funding availability for state scholarship programs, including room for growth as families increasingly wish to choose.
Ensure the Jon Peterson and Autism scholarship per-pupil funding amounts grow commensurate with increases in special education funding.
The historic intent of the state scholarships was to make nonpublic schools available to children disadvantaged by low income, underperforming public schools, or with special needs to choose from other quality options. Not raising the scholarship amounts for 5 consecutive years has placed increasing strain on the nonprofit Catholic schools that make up the cost to educate through their charity. New investment in Ohio’s K-12 education should strengthen these options, which are not the enemy of public schools. State scholarships, especially when used at excellent Catholic schools, are a valuable component of the education of Ohio’s public, all of whom deserve to meet the state board’s goal of being “challenged, prepared and empowered for his or her future” by way of an excellent education.
