CLEVELAND — News 5 Investigators found the number of Ohio families who received taxpayer money in the form of EdChoice Expansion vouchers exploded during the 2023-24 school year, sending close to $400 million in taxpayer money to private, often religious, schools.
Data also suggests families receiving funds after state lawmakers expanded the program last summer were already attending private schools.
The number of students receiving EdChoice Expansion vouchers increased from 23,272 students during the 2022-2023 school year to 82,946 students during the 2023-2024 school year, according to data provided by the Ohio Department of Education & Workforce.
The number of students enrolled in private schools during the 2023-24 school year only increased by 3,719 students, according to ODE&W.
News 5 Investigators' analysis of the 30 largest school districts in Northeast Ohio also suggests new voucher recipients were already enrolled in private schools.
News 5 found local districts did not experience losses in their student populations that correlate with the number of EdChoice Expansion scholarships awarded to students residing in the districts' boundaries, which contradicts state lawmakers' and private schools' arguments that vouchers provide financial help that allows families to choose the best school for their students.
For example, News 5 Investigators found the North Ridgeville City School District lost one student between the 2022-23 school year and 2023-24 school year, but an additional 712 students in the district received EdChoice Expansion vouchers.
Shaker Heights Schools lost 9 students between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, but 99 additional EdChoice Expansion vouchers were issued to the district's students this school year.
Why numbers skyrocketed
The number of Ohio students who received EdChoice Expansion scholarships exploded during the current school year because the Ohio legislature made the program available to every family in the state last year.
Watch our investigative report from last year for more details on the changes to the EdChoice program:
Ohio families who earn up to 450% of the federal poverty level ($135,000 for a family of four) can receive the full amount of the scholarship offered for the 2023-2024 school year: $8,407 for high school students and $6,165 for K-8 students.
Families with incomes higher than 450% of the federal poverty level are still eligible for a partial scholarship and are subject to a sliding scale based on their annual income.
Prior to the changes, only families whose incomes were at or below 250% of the federal poverty level ($75,000 for a family of four) were eligible for the scholarships.
The voucher program's expansion comes with a high price tag for Ohio taxpayers. Lawmakers budgeted approximately $2 billion over the next two years to cover the costs of voucher programs.
Private school perspective
Frank O'Linn, Superintendent of Schools, Diocese of Cleveland, oversees 107 schools. He said he expects more students - and taxpayer dollars - to flow into private schools in the 2024-25 school year.
"The scholarships (EdChoice Expansion) became available in late July and most people already had their minds made up for their schooling," he said.
O'Linn defended how some Catholic schools raised tuition after the program was expanded.
"The key is that they're bringing their tuitions in line with the cost to educate, which has not typically been the starting point before," he said.
O'Linn said inflation and long overdue increases in teachers' salaries also led some schools to increase their tuition.
He said families should not be concerned about tuition increases due to the number of scholarships available through the state, diocese, and local parishes. He encouraged families with financial concerns to reach out to their schools.
Public school perspective
"Use private schools, by all means, but your neighbor shouldn't have to pay the price tag," said Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board member Dan Heintz. "It's not as if we are paving a path for people to attain private school for the first time, quite the contrary, we're just giving a rebate to those affluent families who have been using private schools all along."
Heintz is also a member of the steering committee for the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit. Heintz said close to 200 Ohio school districts have joined the lawsuit, which alleges, among other things, the state's EdChoice Expansion voucher program is unconstitutional, resegregates schools, and harms public education by funneling money into private schools.
"We have families that are earning $35,000 a year who are now subsidizing the private school tuition of families earning $350,000 a year," he said. "And that, we believe, is just wrong."
Heintz noted public schools are required to accept all students, regardless of ability or income, and provide services, including special education, that are not available in many private schools.
He also said private schools are not subject to the same requirements regarding transparency and accountability.
"There is literally no way that we can know for sure that a dollar of that is being actually spent to educate Ohio's private school students," he said.
Depositions began this month. A trial date is scheduled for November.
A tale of two brothers
Adaora Schmiedl's eldest son, Zeke, wanted to go to St. Edward, a Catholic boys' high school in Lakewood.
When she and her husband learned they could reduce the cost of tuition by using EdChoice Expansion, they enrolled him.
"It was very helpful," she said. "We’re a family of creatives. I work in nonprofit, my husband is an independent contractor. Knowing that that would be an option and would help us pay for school, that was huge."
Zeke graduated in 2020 and is now a student at Oberlin College and Conservatory.
However, Schmiedl said making the program available to every Ohio family "flies in the face of what supposedly EdChoice was about."
The voucher program was initially created to provide private school tuition assistance to parents whose students were enrolled in the state's poorest-performing schools.
"We've moved totally away from that," she said. "We’re saying anyone who doesn’t want to go to public school should be able to have their journey elsewhere subsidized."
"If we just think about what that does to our communities and the inequity that it is creating, I think we should be able to, regardless of our political agenda or whatever, we should be able to agree that’s not right," Schmiedl said.
Schmiedl said her younger son, Arthur, chose to attend Cleveland Heights High School, which turned out to be the best choice for him.
A senior, Arthur plays the upright bass (double bass) and is now auditioning at some of the nation's best music schools.
"He has had teachers who are expert at what they do," she said. "He has had the opportunity to be in an environment that very much represents what the best of America could look like where people of different faiths and races and socioeconomic (levels) are all at the table trying figure things out."
"They’re not available to us because we’re privileged," she said. "They’re available to us because we’re members of this community."
