Suit was filed yesterday in an Ohio state trial court by five school districts and an organization comprised of dozens more, as well as by parents of school students, challenging the Ohio legislature's recent expansion of the EdChoice voucher program. The complaint (full text) in Columbus City School District v. State of Ohio, (OH Com. Pl., filed 1/4/2022), alleges that the expanded program violates Article VI, Sec. 2 of the Ohio Constitution which calls for creation of "a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the State" and provides that "no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive rights to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state." The complaint alleges in part:
148. The General Assembly’s continuing efforts to expand the EdChoice Program have been undertaken with full knowledge that these state funds would overwhelmingly benefit parochial schools, at the expense of Ohio’s public school students.
149. These private sectarian institutions will receive exclusive and unfettered control of approximately $250 million of Ohio’s school funding in Fiscal Year 2022....
150. Diverting almost a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer funding to the exclusive control of parochial schools violates the framers’ intent in retaining the full text of Article VI, Section 2 to ensure that public education funds would not be used to support religious sects, including parochial schools.
Columbus Dispatch reports on the lawsuit.
