Almost 90% of Ohio’s children – in big cities, small towns, and rural communities – grow up, learn, and dream at a local public school. But policymakers are falling short on their responsibility to fund our public schools.
Ohio's last two state budgets included partial funding for the Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), a hard-won fix to Ohio’s old unconstitutional school funding system that had forced districts to over-rely on local property taxes. Now it’s time for legislators to fully fund our public schools, using data based on the current costs of school district expenses.
Speaker Matt Huffman is claiming there isn’t enough money for the Fair School Funding Formula. His budget proposal provides only 10% of the fair school funding increase that school districts were expecting and budgeting for. Many districts do even worse under this House budget plan than under Governor DeWine’s budget, which was already inadequate. By completely throwing out the bipartisan, vetted Fair School Funding Plan formula, the House budget eliminates the stability and predictability that school districts need so they can make long term plans that benefit students and communities.
Instead, the money is going to expand vouchers to non-chartered private schools that operate with little accountability. Claims that there isn’t enough funding for public schools while expanding vouchers to schools with little accountability is absurd. Write a letter to your state legislators and to the leaders of the Senate Education and Finance committees to make sure Ohio's state budget helps our children thrive!