One Billion Dollars
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...