(from the Heritage Foundation)

Public school choice: Limited Charter schools: Established 1997 Strength of law: Strong Number of charter schools in
operation (Spring 2000): 48 Number of students enrolled in charter schools (1998–1999): 2,543 Publicly funded private
school choice: Voucher law in Cleveland since 1995 Program description: This school choice program awards scholarships
of up to $2,250 each to approximately 3,500 low-income children (in 1999–2000) to enable them to attend a K–8 public,
private, or religious school of choice. During the 1998–1999 school year, 59 private schools participated in the
program. The program is under litigation.

K–12 Public and Private School Students and Schools

Public school enrollment (fall 1998) and number of schools (1997–1998): 1,842,067 in 3,841 schools Private school
enrollment and number of schools (1997–1998): 251,543 in 991 schools



K–12 Public School Expenditures

Current expenditures (1999–2000): $12,040,000,000 Amount of revenue from the federal government (1998–1999): 5.8%
Current per-pupil expenditures (1999–2000): $6,554

K–12 Public School Teachers (1998–1999)

Number of teachers: 111,452 Average salary: $40,566 Students enrolled per teacher: 16.5 Largest teachers union: NEA

Background

In 1990, Ohio became the fifth state to enact statewide open enrollment. Under the law, schools are required to accept
students from within their district as long as space is available. Students may transfer between districts, with the
state’s share of funding following them to their new school; but districts can opt out of this program. Ohio also
offers post-secondary enrollment options. High school students may enroll in college courses at nearby universities and
community colleges.

Ohio is home to the nation’s first publicly funded private school choice program that includes religious schools. On
June 30, 1995, then-Governor George Voinovich, a Republican, signed a two-year budget package that created a $5 million
pilot voucher program in Cleveland, where it was championed by Councilwoman Fannie Lewis (D). The Cleveland Pilot
Project Scholarship Program, implementation of which began in September 1996, initially allowed the parents of 2,000
Cleveland elementary school students to use vouchers for tuition at a public, private, or religious school of choice.

The governor’s Cleveland voucher plan offered:

Broad eligibility for any student residing in the Cleveland city district and enrolled in kindergarten through 3rd
grade. Broad eligibility for any state-chartered private school, whether religiously affiliated or non-religious. A
scholarship of up to $2,500. Low-income students whose family income is below 200 percent of the poverty line would
receive vouchers worth 90 percent of private school tuition cost or $2,250, whichever is less. All other students would
receive vouchers worth 75 percent of tuition. Each year, a grade level would be added to the eligibility roll, up to
and including the 8th grade. The opportunity for Cleveland’s public schools to keep up to 55 percent of state aid per
pupil each time a child took advantage of a voucher, even if parents accepted the maximum voucher amount—worth 45
percent of state aid, or $2,500—to spend on private school tuition.

The program took effect for the 1996–1997 school year. More than 6,800 parents applied for vouchers, and about 1,855
children were able to participate in the first year of the two-year pilot program. As of September 1999, nearly 3,500
students—approximately 5 percent of the public school enrollment—were using vouchers.

In January 1996, the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Cleveland
school choice plan and asking for an injunction. On July 31, 1996, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Lisa Sadler ruled
that the legislatively approved Cleveland plan violates neither Ohio’s constitution nor the U.S. Constitution. She
noted that the religion clauses of Ohio’s constitution are no more restrictive than the First Amendment and that,
because the "nonpublic sectarian schools participating in the scholarship program are benefited only indirectly, and
purely as the result of the genuinely independent and private choices of aid recipients," including religious schools
in a voucher program does not violate the First Amendment.

On May 1, 1997, however, by a vote of 3 to 0, the Ohio Court of Appeals struck down the Cleveland Pilot Scholarship
Program, overturning Judge Sadler’s decision. The court ruled that the program violated the religious establishment
clauses of both constitutions, as well as a provision in Ohio’s constitution requiring that general laws have statewide
application.

Following this decision, the Ohio Supreme Court granted a motion to stay on July 24, 1997. This allowed the Cleveland
scholarship program to continue operating while the appeals process proceeded. (See Developments in 1999 for update.)

Meanwhile, a fall 1997 study by Jay Greene of the University of Texas at Austin, William Howell of Stanford University,
and Paul Peterson of Harvard University found that 63 percent of parents using the scholarships were "very satisfied"
with the "academic quality" of their schools, whereas only 30 percent of those who applied but did not receive a
voucher were happy with their public schools.2

In 1997, the legislature approved a provision in Governor Voinovich’s budget to set up a pilot charter school program
in Lucas County (in the Toledo area) and to allow conversions of public schools to charter schools throughout the
state.

In May 1998, an amendment to the Cleveland voucher legislation by Representative Mike Wise (R–15) to require that the
Cleveland School District provide transportation to students in the Cleveland scholarship program was approved by both
houses of the legislature.3 This measure significantly decreased the number of students who had to rely on taxicabs to
get to a school of choice. For example, during the 1997–1998 school year, 565 of the 2,938 students enrolled took the
yellow school buses to schools, while 1,084 were transported to school by taxi. However, during the 1998–1999 school
year, 1,853 of the 3,744 students enrolled took the yellow school buses, while only 95 were transported to school by
taxi.4

On September 28, 1998, Dayton, Toledo, and Cincinnati were named three of 40 "partner cities" for the Children’s
Scholarship Fund (CSF) challenge grant. The CSF is a $100 million foundation underwritten by entrepreneurs Ted
Forstmann and John Walton. It matches funds raised by Dayton, Toledo, and Cincinnati residents to fund approximately
1,500 private scholarships for low-income students (750 in Dayton, 500 in Toledo, and 250 in Cincinnati) to attend a
school of choice. A lottery in April 1999 determined who would receive the scholarships, which were awarded for at
least four years to children entering kindergarten through 8th grade the following year. In Dayton, the CSF partnered
with the city’s existing private choice program, PACE, which expanded to serve at least 900 students in 1999–2000.5

Developments in 1999

On April 22, 1999, the Children’s Scholarship Fund announced the winners of the largest private scholarship program in
the country. The recipients were selected randomly by computer-generated lottery. In Dayton, 750 scholarship recipients
were chosen from 5,824 applicants; in Toledo, 500 recipients were chosen from 6,606 applicants; in Cincinnati, 500
recipients were chosen from 12,468 applicants.6

A study released in September 1999 by Dr. Kim Metcalf of Indiana University finds that the Cleveland school choice
program is beginning to reach its objectives.7 Specifically:

Scholarship students show a small but statistically significant improvement of achievement scores in two of five areas
(language and science). The program effectively serves the population of families and children for which it was
intended and developed. The majority of the children who participate in the program are unlikely to have enrolled in a
private school without a scholarship. Scholarship parents’ perceptions of and satisfaction with their children’s
schools are substantially improved. Among parents, the two most important factors for considering a new school are
quality of education and safety.

On May 27, 1999, in the case Simmons–Harris v. Goff, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down (5– 2) the Cleveland
Scholarship and Tuitioning Program on procedural grounds. The court, however, emphasized in a separate ruling (4–0)
that the program did not violate the First Amendment. The ruling notes that "whatever link between government and
religion is created by the school voucher program is indirect, depending only on the genuinely independent and private
choices of individual parents." The legislature was found to have violated a state constitutional requirement for
"one-subject" legislative bills when it approved the Cleveland choice program as part of an appropriations bill. The
ruling allowed the program to continue until the end of the school year and gave the legislature the opportunity to
reauthorize the scholarship plan in a one-subject bill.8

On June 24, 1999, the legislature approved a two-year $17.2 billion state education budget that includes a provision
reviving the Cleveland scholarship program. This new measure was signed into law on June 29.9 Soon after the law had
been passed, the Ohio Education Association, American Civil Liberties Union, and People for the American Way filed suit
in federal court, challenging the program on First Amendment grounds and seeking a preliminary injunction (even though
the Ohio Supreme Court had rejected an identical claim the previous year). On August 24, Federal Judge Solomon Oliver
ruled that the Cleveland program was unconstitutional and granted a preliminary injunction because most parents were
using the vouchers to send their children to religious schools. The ruling, handed down as the school year was about to
begin, caused a huge public outcry and left some 3,800 voucher recipients scrambling to find appropriate public
schools.

Judge Oliver modified his ruling several days later to allow current voucher recipients to remain in the program for
one semester until a ruling on the program’s constitutionality is handed down. On November 5, the U.S. Supreme Court
granted a stay of an injunction against the Cleveland school choice program; but on December 20, Judge Oliver ruled
that the program constitutes a form of "government-supported religious indoctrination" and therefore is
unconstitutional. Judge Oliver based his ruling on the fact that 46 out of the 56 schools participating in the program
are religious schools, arguing that this denied parents a "genuine choice" between religious and non-religious schools.
This decision has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. In the meantime the parties on both
sides of the case have agreed to allow the 3,500 students in the program to remain in their schools until a final
decision is reached.

Meanwhile, a June 1999 survey by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, conducted by Paul Peterson,
reveals that parents participating in Cleveland’s voucher program are more satisfied with many aspects of the schools
they chose than are parents with children still in public schools. Nearly half of all parents were "very satisfied,"
compared with less than 30 percent of public school parents. The study also reveals that voucher parents were much more
satisfied with issues of discipline and safety at their schools than public school parents. The researchers surveyed
505 parents of students who received vouchers through the Cleveland Scholarship Program and 327 parents of students in
Cleveland public schools.10

In addition, a study released on November 17, 1999, by the Columbus-based Buckeye Institute argues that school choice
in Cleveland has provided better racial integration than the Cleveland public school system. The study, conducted by
Dr. Jay P. Greene, research associate at Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance and associate
professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin, finds that 19 percent of Cleveland’s voucher recipients
attend private schools with a racial composition that resembles the average racial composition of the Cleveland area.
Only 5.2 percent of Cleveland public school students are educated in comparably integrated schools. Furthermore, 61
percent of public school students attend schools that have almost entirely white or minority populations. Only 50
percent of voucher-receiving students are educated in a homogenous environment.

Developments in 2000

A new study of Dayton’s PACE private scholarship program by Paul Peterson, Director of the Program on Education Policy
and Governance at Harvard, William Howell of Stanford University, and Patrick Wolf of Georgetown University shows that
African–American students in the program in grades 2–8 scored, on average, nearly seven percentile points higher in
math than those who did not receive scholarships.11

In April, the State Board of Education approved the creation of 15 new charter schools, including two Akron schools run
by Akron businessman David Brennan. Brennan hopes to open 20 new for-profit, taxpayer-funded schools in Ohio over the
next two years.12

Unfortunately, only five of the 11 new charter schools that applied to open in Cincinnati this fall will do so; the
rest will have to wait because they could not find adequate facilities in time. This year, the state implemented a June
15 deadline to secure a facility for the first time since the schools began opening three years ago.13

The state legislature is considering a new law that would give charter high schools vocational education money. As the
majority of charter high schools are billing themselves as vocational, this change could send thousands of dollars per
student to the privately run schools. The provision encountered opposition in the Ohio House and Senate and was put on
hold until the legislature returns from the summer recess.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the Cleveland choice program on June 20, 2000.14

It will likely issue a decision by the end of the summer.15

In the recently returned proficiency test scores, charter school students did worse on the mandatory exams than
students in the academically distressed districts they left. The passage rate for students in charter schools was well
below state averages for public schools. State education officials said they believed the charter schools’ newness was
partially responsible for the poor results; about two-thirds of the state’s charter schools were first-year schools.
Charter proponents said that low scores are inevitable the first few years because charter school students enroll
children who feel behind in public schools; in some cases, the schools had their students for six months before they
were tested.16

Senator Roy L. Ray, an Akron Republican, has introduced a bill in the Ohio legislature that would restore some of the
lost state aid for the upcoming school year to school districts that lose more than 1 percent of their enrollment to
charter and community schools. Tax dollars follow students who transfer from public schools to charter schools. Last
year, according to the Ohio Department of Education, Cleveland lost about 2,073 students and $10 million to charter and
community schools and spent nearly $1 million busing those students. 17

A new privately funded scholarship program for low-income Columbus families was created in late July. Children First
Columbus, founded by Thomas Needles and other private benefactors, provides the scholarships as an affiliate of
Children First CEO America. The scholarships will be awarded on a first-come, first-serves basis, and the application
deadline is August 4.18

Position of the Governor/Composition of State Legislature

Governor Robert Taft, a Republican, favors both public school choice and the use of vouchers. He supports Cleveland’s
voucher program and wants to expand the reach of Ohio’s charter school system. Both houses of the legislature are led
by Republicans.

State Contacts

Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions Dave Owsiany, President 4100 North High Street, Suite 200 Columbus, OH
43214 Phone: (614) 262-1593 Fax: (614) 262-1927 E-mail: buckeye@buckeinstitute.org

Children First Columbus 66 East Lynn Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 Phone: (614) 470-2442

CSF–Greater Cincinnati Lisa Claytor, Administrator P.O. Box 361 33 West Walnut Street Oxford, OH 45056 Phone: (513)
523-3816 or (888) 332-2408 Fax: (513) 984-2684

CSF–Toledo Diocese of Toledo Ricardo "Ric" Cervantes 1933 Spielbusch Toledo, OH 43624 Phone: (419) 244-6711, ext. 375
Fax: (419) 255-8269

Governor’s Commission on Educational Choice David Brennan, Chairman 159 South Main Street, 6th Floor Akron, OH 44308
Phone: (330) 996-0202 Fax: (330) 762-3938

Hope for Ohio’s Children Nancy Brennan 159 South Main Street Akron, OH 44308 Phone: (330) 535-6868

Honorable Fannie Lewis Councilwoman 601 Lakeside Avenue, #220 Cleveland, OH 44114 Phone: (216) 229-4277 Fax: (216)
229-4278

Ohio Department of Education 65 South Front Street Columbus, OH 43215 Phone: (614) 466-3641 Web site:
http://www.ode.ohio.us/

Ohio Roundtable–Freedom Forum The School Choice Committee David Zanotti, Chairman Patty Hollo, Executive Director Bert
Holt, Co-Chairman 31005 Solon Road Solon, OH 44139 Phone: (440) 349-3393 Fax: (440) 349-0154

Parents Advancing Choice in Education (PACE) Theodore J. Wallace, Executive Director 110 North Main Street, Suite 1360
Dayton, OH 45402 Phone: (937) 264-4800 E-mail: twallace@erinet.com

Endnotes

1 For sources, see "An Explanation of the State Profile Categories."

2 The research can be found on the Internet at http://www.data.fas.harvard.edu/pepg/.

3 The Blum Center’s Educational Freedom Report, No. 60, June 19, 1998.

4 Ibid.

5 See Children’s Scholarship Fund Web site at http://www.scholarshipfund.org.

6 Ibid.

7 Dr. Kim Metcalf, "Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Grant Program, 1996–99," Indiana Center for
Evaluation, Indiana University, September 1999.

8 The Friedman–Blum Educational Freedom Report, No. 72, June 18, 1999.

9 The Friedman–Blum Educational Freedom Report, No. 73, July 23, 1999.

10 See Harvard University Web site at http://data.fas.harvard.edu/pepg/.

11 Ibid.

12 Dennis Willard, "Charter Schools Come Back," The Beacon Journal, April 12, 2000, and Doug Oplinger, "Akron
Entrepreneur Plans to Open More Charter Schools," The Beacon Journal, May 10, 2000.

13 James Pilcher, "Several Charter Schools Will Wait," The Cincinnati Enquirer, August 6, 2000

14 Source: Doug Oplinger, "Charter Schools May Cash In," The Beacon Journal, May 30, 2000.

15 "School Choice Litigation Status," Institute for Justice, June 21, 2000.

16 Scott Stephens, "Charter Schools Don’t Do Well on State Exams," The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 27, 2000.

17 Stephen Ohlemacher, "Bill Targets Charter-School Funding Drain," Cleveland Plain-Dealer, July 12, 2000.

18 News release, Children First Columbus, July 19, 2000.