Tag Archives: Budget

Nearly 400 Cleveland high school students apply for Cleveland school voucher

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For the first time in the program’s history, Cleveland high school students were eligible to apply this year for the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program. The application period closed on May 31, and the Ohio Department of Education reports that a total of 398 high school students applied.

High school eligibility for the Cleveland scholarship program was added to the budget that Governor Kasich signed on June 30, 2011. Prior to that, only students in grades K-8 were eligible to apply.

Without this change in eligibility, these 398 students would have had to struggle to pay for private high school or simply leave. Now, their families can focus on saving money for college instead of worrying about paying private high school tuition.

And now, time to say thanks

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“Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.”  – G.B. Stern

The major voucher expansions included in the state budget are a move in the right direction for Ohio. Eligibility for vouchers in the Buckeye State tripled to 400,000 eligible students (almost a quarter of the state’s K-12 students). The capacity in Ohio’s voucher programs also quadrupled to 80,000 spots. Many more Ohio families will now have the chance to find the best learning environment for their child.

Let’s make sure that the elected leaders who took a stand for school choice hear a big THANK YOU from us. Please take a moment today to contact champions like Governor Kasich, Senator Kevin Bacon, Rep. Matt Huffman, Senator Peggy Lehner, and Speaker Bill Batchelder to thank them for making new options available to kids. Some ideas:

  • Work together with your kids to draw and send a thank you card to their office
  • Invite them out for coffee to share why you appreciate their support of school choice
  • Make a phone call or send a quick e-mail sharing how their support makes a difference

We will keep working toward a system that allows all families to choose their child’s school (particularly through the PACT Scholarship and tax credit scholarship proposals), but in the meantime we have a lot to celebrate.

“Thank you” are among the rarest two words heard in politics. Let’s be among those that show our appreciation when our elected leaders act in the best interest of kids.

 

New and expanded school vouchers passed in Ohio budget

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Governor Kasich finalized momentous changes and expansions to Ohio’s school choice programs today as he signed the Ohio budget bill into law. The budget creates Ohio’s fourth school voucher program and expands two of the state’s existing voucher programs.

As a result, eligibility for vouchers in the Buckeye State will jump to almost 400,000 eligible students. The capacity in Ohio’s voucher programs will also quadruple to nearly 80,000 spots.

This is a monumental day for many families in Ohio who want and deserve the opportunity to send their children to the school that best meets their learning needs. Ohio families demanded more educational options for their children, and today it is evident that Ohio’s leaders listened.

 The budget creates Ohio’s fourth school voucher program to provide scholarships for K-12 students with special needs. Named for a former state representative who advocated for the scholarship during his tenure in the statehouse, the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship will provide a scholarship to any child with special needs who has an Individualized Education Program (IEP).

In addition to the creation of the new scholarship program, the budget also expands and updates two existing scholarship programs. The EdChoice Scholarship Program will quadruple the number of scholarships available during the next two years to allow 60,000 scholarships by the 2012-13 school year. Eligibility for EdChoice also expanded to include students who attend the schools in the bottom 10 percent of the state, according to performance index scores. A second application window will open tomorrow and give families 45 days to apply.

The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program saw long-awaited improvements, including an $800-$1,550 per student increase in the scholarship amount to mirror the EdChoice Scholarship. Also, the program, previously limited to students entering grades K-8, is now open to students in any grade.

School Choice Ohio applauds the work of the Ohio legislature and Governor Kasich on this budget. Many more Ohio families will now have the chance to find the best learning environment for their child. These changes are a move in the right direction for Ohio.

State Budget: Proposed Impact on School Vouchers

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The two-year state budget process is moving forward, and it is taking school vouchers forward with it.

Today, the Ohio Senate proposed the creation of a Special Education Scholarship, much to the delight of the many families who have been sharing their stories with legislators for the past several months and years. The Senate also maintained the school voucher expansions proposed in the Ohio House and Senate.

Senate’s Special Education Scholarship proposal:

  • For many years, parents of students with special needs have been asking for the same opportunities that students with autism already enjoy with the Autism Scholarship.
  • The Autism Scholarship is a proven program that is making a difference for students. This scholarship expands eligibility beyond just one type of disability.
  • A special education scholarship would allow any student with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) to receive a voucher worth approximately 80% of their public school funding.
  • The program is capped at 5% of the students in the state with special needs which would provide just more than 13,000 scholarship opportunities statewide.

House of Representatives’ proposed expansions (proposed in April):

  • Increase the Cleveland voucher amount to parity with the EdChoice Scholarship. Cleveland vouchers are now worth $1,100-$1,900 less than EdChoice, just because they’re in a different city. The House proposal addresses this historical inequity.
  • Allow high school students to apply for a Cleveland voucher to address another historical inequity in the Cleveland voucher versus the EdChoice voucher – the inability of students of high school age to access a Cleveland voucher. The House proposal would allow Cleveland students in any grade to apply for a voucher.

Governor Kasich’s proposed expansions (proposed in March):

  • Expand eligibility for the EdChoice Scholarship by adding a 2nd definition of low-rated schools based on performance index score. This change is estimated to increase EdChoice eligibility by more than 60% from 85,000 to 140,000 students.
  • Quadruple the number of EdChoice Scholarships available to eliminate the current waiting list for families
  • Add a summer EdChoice application window to allow newly-eligible families to apply for the upcoming school year.

All of these proposals build on each other and would mean major increases in voucher eligibility for Ohio families. If all these changes pass, eligibility would nearly quadruple from 120,000 to 440,000 and the number of vouchers available in capped programs would increase from 20,000 to almost 80,000 spots.

Voucher Program Current Capacity Proposed Capacity Current Eligibility Proposed Eligibility
EdChoice Scholarship 14,000 60,000 85,000 140,000*
Special Education/Autism n/a 13,000 15,000 260,000
Cleveland voucher 6,000 6,000 26,000 40,000
Total: 20,000 79,000 121,000 440,000

* estimated

The state budget is required to be finalized by June 30, after the House and Senate hammer out the differences between their versions in June.

 

Senate Proposal Creates Special Education Scholarship Program

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The Ohio Senate’s budget proposal released today includes language that creates a special education scholarship program. A special needs voucher program has been discussed in the Statehouse for many years, and now with this action by the Senate, we are one step closer to making this a reality for Ohio families who have children with special needs.

The creation of a special education scholarship program would empower families of children with special needs to find the best learning environment for their child’s unique educational needs. These families would finally be able to access the same educational opportunities that students with autism have for the past eight years.

Scholarship amounts would be based on the student’s disability and associated educational needs. A portion of the money that would have been used to fund the child’s public education will follow the child to the private school. It is estimated that approximately 260,000 students with special needs would be eligible to receive a scholarship. The special needs scholarship program would allow up to five percent of the students with special needs, approximately 13,000 students statewide, to access the private educational providers of their choice.

Stay tuned as the Senate’s final budget will be determined next week.

Parents Have New Tool to Ensure Accountability

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One of the underpinnings of the school choice movement has always been our belief in accountability.  Without a doubt, voucher programs have always had market accountability. If parents are unhappy with the education a private school is providing to their children then they simply leave. A private school failing to meet the educational needs of its students is destined to struggle or fail.

 

Many people, friend and foe alike, have also suggested additional accountability (or perhaps more accurately, transparency) for school choice programs. They want to know if students using the programs are performing better academically than their cohorts in public schools.

 

At SCO, we agree that the measurement of academic performance is important. To that end, we have repeatedly pushed to have longitudinal analysis conducted on voucher student test data. After all, all students using an EdChoice Scholarship in Ohio take the state assessment test. Despite high profile studies in Florida, Washington, DC, and Milwaukee, we have not been able to get a similar study done in Ohio. That is soon going to change.

 

The recently passed state budget included language that will increase public transparency of the scholarship programs and give parents additional information to help them make informed decisions about their children’s education. The new language will require the Ohio Department of Education to:

§         Compile and organize test scores of voucher students on a statewide, school district, and private school basis

§         Post voucher student performance to the website each year (without identifying individual students)

§         Notify all eligible parents how voucher students are performing on the state assessment

§         Provide data on their child’s performance annually to the parents of all voucher students and compare the performance to that of similar students who attend the public school that the child would have been assigned

 

In this case, a change of language in the budget is a good thing.  Given that parents are the primary consumer when making decisions about their children’s education, it is important that they know how their children are faring.

 

In addition, we welcome the chance to show policy makers and naysayers what we hear from so many parents….the program works.

 

– Chad Aldis

 

 

 

 

 

Aftershock

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“Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?”—SHAKESPEARE.

 

In the wake of a difficult state budget, EdChoice students, parents, and schools have taken a direct hit.

 

In a blow to hardworking Ohio parents, Governor Strickland reduced scholarship amounts for the popular scholarship program.  Scholarships have been reduced from $4500 to $4250 for K-8 and from $5300 to $5000 for 9-12.

 

Unfortunately, this change was unnecessary.  The House and Senate had already made a compromise on funding the vouchers by taking out the automatic increase for changes in the cost of education that the scholarship had included.

 

Thus, the scholarship was both cut by 6% (back to 2006 funding levels) and given no ability to adjust upward in the future.  This is more than everyone sharing in what was a painful budget process for many, as public schools were only cut by 1% (before taking into account federal stimulus dollars). This is a weakening of a parental option for parents whose children had been assigned to attend Ohio’s lowest performing public schools. Why?

 

The veto message from the governor stated, “This provision would increase the maximum award for the Educational Choice scholarship program.  In a time of limited resources and shared sacrifice across state government, it is not in the public interest to increase these scholarships.”

 

First, the vetoed language would not have been an increase in the scholarship amount—students this year received scholarships with a maximum value of $4500 and $5300 depending upon grade level. This represents a decrease in funding. Second, during this time of shared sacrifice, education was not supposed to be on the list of cuts.

 

These cuts when coupled with the reductions in state aid to Ohio’s parochial and other nonpublic schools might force schools to increase tuition to make up for the lost revenue. 

 

During these trying economic times, these parents have already and are continuing to sacrifice for their families. It is now more important than ever that we do not take from parents quality educational choices for their children.

 

We all want our children to have a quality education.  This means improving all schools to fit the needs of the child.  It is imperative for us all to work together.   If we fail to strip away the dogma that surrounds education and treats public education as the only available source of education, then we have not embraced the change that President Obama has called for.

 

As the governor seeks to turn around Ohio through the promotion of education as the main thruster of economic resource, this action is truly a curious way to make education a top priority and show a commitment to all Ohio students.

 

– Tisha Brady

 

 

Through the Looking Glass

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“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.”

                   — Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

 

Private schools are trying to make sense of something that really doesn’t make sense.

 

They are desperately trying to regain their balance and recover from the unexpected $59 million that was stripped in the budget. This was money that was mainly used to help fund standardized testing, remedial reading and math, textbooks, speech and hearing therapy, instructional supplies and equipment, guidance counselors, and nurses. 

 

These resources are most often the services that children, especially in urban private schools, need the most.  Suffice it to say, these cuts will have lasting and damaging effects on private schools that continue to serve students at a fraction of the cost spent to educate students in public schools. 

 

Adding insult to injury, these are not the first cuts that private schools have had to endure.  During the budget adjustments that occurred during last fiscal year, private schools suffered a 4.75 percent cut to which the 15% cut has been added.  Thus, private schools were subject to a double whammy.

 

What is striking about the cuts is the total inequity of treatment of private schools when compared to public schools.  It is especially striking when you consider the educational outcomes of private schools and the quest for education reform in Ohio.  Why penalize those who have a proven and effective track record of educating students?  Read more in the statement issued by the Catholic Conference of Ohio.

 

The impact of how this will affect individual schools remains to be seen, but the forecast is not good for students, parents, or schools.

 

– Tisha Brady