Investigation: Meager results for Ohio vouchers after spending $250 million

Since 2018, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been shifted away from Ohio's public schools and into private, mainly religious ones in the form of vouchers, all to enhance academic success.

Yet those same private schools mostly failed to meet the academic caliber set by their neighboring public school districts, according to a Cincinnati Enquirer analysis of nearly 2.5 million test scores from schools in more than 150 Ohio cities during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years.

The analysis found that in 88% of the cities in the analysis, a public district achieved better state testing results than those private schools with an address in the same city. A majority of the eight largest urban districts — including Akron and Canton — were among those that outperformed privates.

The state deducted nearly $250 million in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 from the districts included in the Enquirer's analysis. The funds paid for private school tuition through two voucher programs.

Only private schools with voucher students were part of the analysis, as private school testing data from the state is limited to that group of students.

Emmanuel Christian Academy, St. Mary Elementary School and St. Vincent-St. Mary received the most money in EdChoice funding deducted from Akron City Schools in fiscal year 2020.

Combined, the three private schools received more than $2 million.

Yet two of the three schools earned proficiency percentages less than half that of Akron's largest public school district. Akron City Schools achieved a 42% proficiency rate, while Emmanuel Christian and St. Mary came in at less than 19%. St. Vincent-St. Mary voucher students had a 26% proficiency rate.

Comparing Ohio public and private schools

Archbishop Hoban performed markedly better, with a 73% proficiency rate. The school received $700,000 in EdChoice funds deducted from Akron public schools.

Akron City Schools saw $20 million in EdChoice deductions since 2018, but the school district outperformed the collective private schools in the area by nearly eight percentage points — the highest of any of the largest eight Ohio districts.

Eleven other Akron-area cities had public districts that outperformed the private schools within their respective communities.

Springfield Local bested the local combined private school proficiency rate by 45 percentage points, but the state deducted $24,250 for EdChoice in fiscal year 2020.

Program expanding?

Sixty-two public districts in the analysis experienced state funding deductions in fiscal 2020, about twice as many as the year before. The deductions are used to pay private school tuition through the two voucher programs. But four in five of those districts achieved better test scores than their neighboring private schools, the analysis found.

The number of districts subject to deducted funding for one voucher program, EdChoice, ballooned ahead of this school year.

New rules that spurred the expansion, however, were later put on hold by lawmakers, who essentially froze the program at 2019-20 levels. A long-term solution hasn't yet been made. Meanwhile, opponents say they're planning a lawsuit against the program.

During the 2019-20 school year, students in 137 public districts qualified for EdChoice vouchers. For this school year, before lawmakers froze the program, 416 districts qualified — a threefold increase. The newly qualifying districts included some considered to be top performers.

And those new districts could still lose students — and funding — to EdChoice this year in certain rare scenarios, according to guidance from the Ohio Department of Education.

Evidence of the programs' effectiveness has long been scarce, said Stephen Dyer, an education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio, a progressive think tank.

“Overall, we’ve spent billions of dollars on these options, and the investment doesn’t seem to be giving us the best bang for the buck,” said Dyer, who found results similar to The Enquirer's analysis in a past study of 2017-18 data. Find details on how The Enquirer performed its analysis here.

The voucher programs — the most common Educational Choice Scholarship and the older Cleveland Scholarship, which began in 1996 — allow students residing within certain public districts to qualify for taxpayer-funded private school tuition scholarships, or vouchers.

Students enrolled in or living nearby those schools that fail to meet academic benchmarks set by the state can qualify for EdChoice.

Public districts included in the analysis had $410 million deducted and redirected to private schools through the programs since 2018. Ohio's eight largest districts shouldered the heaviest burden, with about $325 million deducted, according to Ohio Department of Education data.

Yet five of the largest districts — Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Toledo — fared better academically than their local private school rivals, by margins ranging from slight to decisive, according to The Enquirer analysis.

Dayton, Columbus and Youngstown, the remaining three of Ohio's largest districts, had lower test proficiency levels than their surrounding private schools.

In 2019, Black pupils comprised a majority of all students in Ohio's eight largest districts.

But the voucher system has been least successful in educating Black students, testing data shows. About 37% of Black voucher students in Ohio's private schools met or exceeded proficiency, about four percentage points lower than Hispanics and nearly 20 points lower than whites.

The Enquirer performed a public-private state test proficiency analysis for 152 Ohio cities, comparing a public district in a given city to the collective private schools in the same city.