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ProPublica: Inside the Push to Redirect Public Funds to Private Religious Schools

On Jan. 13, 2025, ProPublica published an extensively-researched story on how the state of Ohio became a national model in the movement to redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools; an initiative initially promoted as a civil rights cause — helping poor kids — is increasingly funneling money to families who already easily afford private school tuition. What follows is a summary of their findings.

In May 2023, about a hundred people gathered in the atrium of the Ohio Capitol for a Christian worship event, “Prayer at the Statehouse.” Organized by the Center for Christian Virtue, the event highlighted the group’s growing political influence, symbolized by its headquarters across from the capitol. Among the attendees were state legislators and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who spoke about integrating faith into governance. Husted connected the power of prayer to political achievements like the expansion of school choice programs, drawing applause from the crowd.

This expansion represents one of the most significant transformations in school voucher programs, enabling even wealthy families in Ohio to receive public funds for private school tuition. Initially introduced in the 1990s as a way to help disadvantaged students in Cleveland escape struggling public schools, vouchers now benefit more than 150,000 students statewide, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion annually. Most of these funds flow to Catholic and evangelical schools, reflecting a broader national trend.

The National Voucher Movement

Ohio’s voucher expansion is part of a larger national movement. Over the past few years, a dozen states, including Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, have adopted universal voucher programs. Advocates are pushing for similar policies in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, with potential federal support under a new Trump administration. However, critics argue the initiative, once framed as a civil rights cause, is increasingly benefiting affluent families and straining public school budgets.

The financial implications are stark. In Arizona, voucher costs have far exceeded projections, creating budget shortfalls. In other states, funds intended for education have been used for unconventional expenses like kayaks and horseback-riding lessons. Private schools are raising tuition to capitalize on the new funding, further limiting access for low-income families.

Despite this, public opinion remains divided. Recent referendums in Nebraska and Kentucky rejected vouchers, highlighting resistance even in conservative areas. Yet, the movement’s success in states like Ohio offers a blueprint for advocates elsewhere.

The Ohio Model: A Strategy Decades in the Making

Ohio’s voucher program began as a collaboration between political, religious, and business leaders in the early 1990s. Facing declining enrollment in urban Catholic schools, Ohio’s bishops sought state support. They found an ally in then-Gov. George Voinovich, a devout Catholic who viewed religious education as a solution to societal problems. Voinovich worked closely with the bishops, emphasizing that public funds for Catholic schools were a more effective investment than government programs.

To mitigate legal and political risks, Voinovich sought proxies to champion the cause. Businessman David Brennan emerged as a key partner. Brennan, a wealthy Catholic school alumnus, chaired a commission on school choice. Behind the scenes, the bishops influenced the commission’s composition, ensuring alignment with their goals.

The commission framed vouchers as a way to help low-income families, addressing potential criticism. By 1995, Ohio launched its first voucher pilot program, setting the stage for today’s universal model.

Broader Implications

The voucher movement reflects a broader ideological shift, with advocates challenging the separation of church and state. In Ohio and elsewhere, this effort has been driven by well-connected individuals and organizations united by a belief in the moral and educational superiority of religious schools.

However, the expansion of vouchers raises questions about equity and sustainability. Public schools, already grappling with declining enrollment, face additional financial pressure. Meanwhile, the benefits of vouchers are disproportionately accruing to families who can already afford private education.

Ohio’s experience illustrates both the potential and pitfalls of universal vouchers. As the movement gains momentum nationwide, its long-term impact on public education remains a contentious and critical issue.

Representative C.J. Prentiss watched the development of Ohio’s voucher program with deep concern. Elected to the Ohio House in 1991, Prentiss was a staunch advocate for public education and a veteran of the fight for school integration. Her activism was rooted in personal history—her father had been a member of the Congress of Racial Equality, and she had experienced the 1963 March on Washington after graduating from Cleveland’s Marshall High School, where she was one of just six Black students. Her later battles against school segregation brought her together with Michael Charney, a white teacher and union activist who became her third husband. Having taught in Shaker Heights and served on the State Board of Education, Prentiss brought a lifetime of educational commitment to her legislative role.

In 1993, she and other Black leaders in Cleveland voiced strong opposition to Governor George Voinovich’s voucher proposal. “It is difficult to see how subsidizing private schools will improve public education,” she argued. “Private schools have selective entrance requirements, serve only private purposes, and are not accountable to the public.”

David Brennan, a key figure in the voucher movement, brushed off the criticism, suggesting that legislators’ perspectives might change as the plan evolved. Privately, however, Brennan and Voinovich understood that passing a standalone voucher bill would be politically challenging. Educators and administrators were already lobbying lawmakers to oppose it. In 1994, Voinovich suggested a strategic workaround: embedding a pilot voucher program into the state budget. “We are going to have to crawl before we walk,” he wrote to Brennan. “If we can get it underway in one or two districts during my second term, it will be a significant achievement.”

The effort was carefully coordinated. Tom Needles, Voinovich’s education policy aide, advised the governor on how to leverage support from Ohio’s Catholic Conference while maintaining the appearance of impartiality. Behind the scenes, the bishops mobilized parents across the state to lobby legislators. In early 1995, the voucher campaign reached a crescendo, with busloads of parents and children descending on the state capitol to make their case. One parent captured the urgency: “The public schools are preparing Black children for prison, the welfare office, or the graveyard. As a Black parent, that’s unacceptable.”

Prentiss acknowledged the crisis in public education but maintained that vouchers were not the solution. “The question before us is, how do we improve the public schools?” she told the crowd. Nevertheless, the bishops’ well-organized efforts, which included tens of thousands of letters to legislators, proved decisive. By March 1995, the House approved a budget that included a pilot voucher program targeting Cleveland.

The program, which offered several thousand vouchers worth about $2,200 each, was specifically designed to benefit Catholic schools. It marked a historic shift: Cleveland became only the second U.S. city to implement private school vouchers, and unlike Milwaukee, its program included religious schools from the outset.

Prentiss and her husband, Charney, recognized the broader implications. “This is the beginning of the end for public education,” he told her, only half-joking. Determined to hold the program accountable, Prentiss successfully championed legislation requiring voucher-recipient schools to meet public school standards. She also focused on public school reforms like all-day kindergarten and smaller class sizes, emphasizing that test results showed public school students performing on par with their voucher counterparts.

As the voucher program expanded, legal challenges ensued. Critics argued that it violated the constitutional separation of church and state. The issue ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the program in a narrow 5-4 decision in 2002. The Court framed the voucher initiative as part of a broader strategy to improve educational opportunities for Cleveland’s children. Pro-voucher advocates hailed the decision as a landmark victory.

For Prentiss and others committed to public education, the ruling underscored the enduring battle ahead. Despite the setbacks, she continued her efforts to strengthen public schools, determined to ensure that all students, regardless of background, had access to quality education.

Following the Court’s decision, attention shifted toward charter schools as an alternative to traditional public schools. These publicly funded yet independently managed institutions gained bipartisan support. In the 1990s, many Democrats had viewed charters as a more acceptable form of school choice, while Republicans also embraced the model. David Brennan, chair of Governor Voinovich’s school choice commission, even launched a for-profit charter school venture.

By 2005, Ohio’s Catholic bishops, concerned about declining parochial school enrollment due to the rise of charter schools, successfully pushed for a statewide voucher program. Known as EdChoice, the initiative expanded beyond Cleveland, offering vouchers to students in failing schools, primarily in Columbus and Cincinnati.

Prentiss remained a legislative stalwart against vouchers until 2006, eventually becoming Ohio’s second Black woman to serve as Senate minority leader. As her tenure ended, a new voucher advocate, Matt Huffman, emerged.

Huffman, a Republican from Lima, Ohio, had deep roots in Catholic education and conservative activism. His father, a lawyer and prosecutor, once argued an obscenity case before the U.S. Supreme Court, while his mother co-founded one of Ohio’s first pregnancy crisis centers after the legalization of abortion. Huffman and his eight siblings all attended Catholic schools, benefiting from their affordability in earlier decades. However, rising tuition had increasingly limited access for middle-class families. Huffman later reflected on this shift, noting that “the middle class was pretty much shut out of alternatives in education.”

After establishing himself in local politics, Huffman became a champion of school choice during his legislative career. In 2011, with Republican Governor John Kasich in office, Huffman proposed expanding vouchers to include middle-class families, regardless of whether they lived in failing districts. He framed the issue as one of fairness, asserting, “You pay taxes, I pay taxes. Why can’t my taxes go toward my children’s school?”

The proposal drew fierce opposition. Critics, including public school administrators, pointed to studies showing that voucher students often underperformed compared to their public school peers. In Lima, where several schools were deemed failing, the exodus of students with vouchers drained resources from public schools. 

In 2013, Huffman achieved a partial victory: the state expanded EdChoice eligibility to families earning up to twice the poverty level. However, his broader goal of universal voucher access remained unrealized.

Huffman’s efforts were supported by Citizens for Community Values, a conservative advocacy group founded in Cincinnati. Under the leadership of Phil Burress, the group gained prominence in the 1990s for its campaigns against pornography and same-sex marriage. Burress, a self-proclaimed former pornography addict, described his organization as grounded in Christian principles. By the early 2000s, school choice had become one of its key priorities.

In 2017, Huffman returned to the Ohio Senate, where he renewed his push for voucher expansion. He found an unlikely ally in Aaron Baer, the new leader of Citizens for Community Values, which had rebranded as the Center for Christian Virtue. Baer, a millennial with a modern approach to Christian conservatism, brought fresh energy to the movement. Together, Huffman and Baer lobbied for broader voucher access and worked to define “failing” schools as expansively as possible.

By 2020, Huffman was still fighting for a significant voucher expansion. At a meeting with public school officials in western Ohio, he faced pointed questions about the risks of taxpayer dollars funding extremist ideologies through private schools. Huffman deflected the concerns, instead expressing frustration about perceptions of Catholicism as a cult.

Despite opposition, Huffman’s persistence reshaped Ohio’s educational landscape, marking a steady shift toward greater school choice.

Huffman’s proposal stalled again during that legislative term. But two months later, the pandemic struck, and schools closed. Nearly a year later, around a third of Ohio’s 609 districts had yet to resume full in-person instruction. The holdouts included many of the largest districts, such as Cleveland and Columbus.

In contrast, most of the state’s parochial schools had reopened within months. The Catholic Conference of Ohio highlighted these schools’ educational gains to the legislature. “A lot of legislators appreciated what we did for children, because they were frustrated, too,” said a former conference employee. “We were sort of a beacon during COVID.” This sentiment was bolstered by the fact that many legislators had children in Catholic schools. Despite Catholics comprising just 17% of Ohio’s population, they made up over half the Senate and a third of the House.

As the pandemic continued, school closures sparked outrage across the country. “They ignited a parent revolution, as families realized that school systems didn’t prioritize them,” said Corey DeAngelis, a leading voucher advocate, on The Megyn Kelly Show in May 2022. “This was the silver lining of the pandemic.”

In May 2021, two Republican representatives introduced the “backpack bill,” proposing universal school vouchers: $7,500 per high schooler and $5,500 per younger student. At the bill’s announcement, Baer emphasized how the pandemic revealed the need for diverse learning options. “Families were forced into online environments that weren’t ideal because their local schools didn’t reopen,” he said. Unlike Huffman’s earlier efforts, which excluded wealthier families, this bill included everyone.

Proponents gained an advantage when Huffman was elected Senate president. With Republicans holding supermajorities in both chambers, Huffman could both champion vouchers and block redistricting reforms that might have weakened GOP dominance. “We can kind of do what we want,” Huffman told the Dispatch.

Despite this, Huffman and allies opted not to pursue the backpack bill through normal channels, wary of opposition from rural Republicans whose districts lacked private schools. Instead, they inserted voucher expansions into the state budget—a 1,200-page document finalized just before the deadline. Families earning up to 450% of the federal poverty level qualified for full funding, with partial funding available for higher earners. The program now covered tens of thousands of families, transforming vouchers from a targeted solution to a universal policy.

More than 30 years after vouchers were first proposed as a way to help underprivileged students, they had become a statewide subsidy for private school tuition. “We’ll have the money to fund it,” Huffman said.

The expansion faced backlash. In 2022, over 200 school districts filed a lawsuit, arguing the program violated constitutional principles and exacerbated racial segregation. Ninety percent of new voucher recipients were white, compared to two-thirds of Ohio’s student population. A judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss, and a trial is pending. Among the plaintiffs was the Lima school district in Huffman’s hometown. Superintendent Kupferberg estimated the expansion cost his county’s public schools millions annually, straining budgets as federal pandemic aid dwindled.

Meanwhile, some private schools raised tuition, leveraging vouchers to increase revenue. For instance, Incarnation Catholic School near Columbus ended tuition discounts for families with multiple children, citing the need to cover true education costs and invest in staff and infrastructure.

Huffman and his allies are pushing further, including funding private school construction in rural areas and creating education savings accounts for unregulated private schools. The Center for Christian Virtue, a key player in advancing these efforts, has seen its revenue triple in two years, enabling it to expand operations and lobby more aggressively for voucher programs.

In October 2022, the center hosted a policy conference on Christian education, attracting figures like Kevin Roberts — president of the Heritage Foundation and former CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) — underscored Ohio’s pivotal role in the school choice movement during his visit. The Heritage Foundation’s policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration, known as Project 2025, strongly endorses voucher programs, and Roberts’ presence affirmed Ohio’s influence as a model for this initiative. 

Ohio’s voucher expansion represents a dramatic shift in public education funding, with private and religious schools now playing a central role in shaping the future of education policy.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott actively supported the defeat of nearly a dozen anti-voucher Republicans in state legislative primaries, bolstered by $10 million in campaign contributions from Jeff Yass. A Pennsylvania hedge fund billionaire, Yass has made voucher expansion a cornerstone of his policy advocacy.

RA Staff
RA Staff
Written by RA News staff.

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