HB 110: Fair to All Students and Fair To All Taxpayers?
In H.B. 110, the Ohio House includes the long-studied plan for public education funding, a laudable, historic step. As with any budget, it presents a challenge: how to balance it by prioritizing areas of importance efficiently for all stakeholders. The designers of the formula have done thorough, thoughtful work – for public districts. The proposed model based on inputs, when fully implemented, would add $2.0 billion to the district’s education expenditures that are now over $21 billion per year, $11 billion of which is provided by the state. For all of the proposed investment in education, not one penny is added for the state’s school choice scholarships which this year enabled more than 67,000 students to attend nonpublic schools efficiently, and with outstanding results. This is perhaps not surprising from a School Funding Workgroup consisting entirely of public district leaders, without representation of nonpublic schools, which educate approximately 10% ...