COLUMBUS, Ohio ( WCMH ) — State data shows nearly 90% of students enrolled in Ohio’s voucher program this year are not low-income qualified, a dramatic turnabout from the program’s stated initial purpose.
Ohio’s K-12 voucher program has made headlines recently as lawmakers consider trimming millions in state funds for public schools while expanding funds for state vouchers. Ohio offers five voucher programs, which provide state scholarships for students to attend private school. Of them, EdChoice and EdChoice Expansion have the largest participation by far.
The EdChoice program began to help low-income students in struggling districts, but the EdChoice-Exp program made it so any Ohio student could get at least a partial scholarship, regardless of income. The expansion rapidly increased scholarship enrollment, but most of the recipients are not low-income eligible. See previous coverage of vouchers in the video player above.
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According to state data, fewer EdChoice and EdChoice-Exp participants qualified as low-income this school year when compared to last. Further, according to a report from the General Assembly, 17% of EdChoice-Exp scholarships go to the state’s top earners, all making more than $200,000 per year. This means the third-largest percentile of scholarship participants are among the top 8.4% wealthiest households in Ohio…