Ohio Issues Draft School Voucher Program Rules

The Ohio Department of Education yesterday issued Revised Draft Administrative Rules for Ohio's Educational Choice Pilot Scholarship Program. This is how the program, which includes religiously affiliated schools, was described earlier this year by the Cato Institute: "Ohio's bellwether accomplishment is the new Educational Choice Scholarship Program. It offers vouchers to 14,000 children in schools on "academic watch" or in "academic emergency" for three years anywhere in the state. Ohio is not the first to pass a statewide choice program, but Florida's older Opportunity Scholarship Program serves only 753 students and is dogged by court challenges. The ECSP will be the largest program of its kind, and prior litigation should insulate it from legal challenge."