Fair School Funding Plan

When Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine approved the state’s budget earlier this summer, the state boosted the state’s private-school scholarships to $8,407 for high school students. That’s now more than what most public school districts are receiving, on average, in funding from the state.

As the school year gets started for many students — whether they attend public, private or charter schools— it might be a good time to pause and look at how those students' schools are impacted by state funding in Ohio.

Most of Ohio's new school levies failed Tuesday, according to the Ohio Association of School Boards. That's the lowest success rate for these bond issues and levy requests since 2007 when the country was on the cusp of the Great Recession.

The Ohio House and Senate are now considering different versions of school funding plans as part of the upcoming state budget. Some of the members \of a bipartisan group that created a school funding plan that was considered in the legislature last year want to refocus lawmakers on the proposal.

A battle is coming over the school funding formula overhaul introduced in the Senate’s version of the budget yesterday – which blows up the one proposed in the House that school groups and education advocates supported.

A coalition of progressive groups is coming together to support a bipartisan school funding plan that’s been put into the budget after languishing in the state legislature.

Leagues of Women Voters of Hudson, Kent, Akron and Greater Cleveland have come together for a Real Talk discussion about the Fair School Funding plan. Real Talk is a series of honest dialogues that address issues of inequity and discrimination.

The new school funding bill is similar to the one that passed in the Ohio House last year but a few tweaks have been made to it.

Although House Bill 305, which introduced the Fair School Funding Plan, appears to be dead in the Ohio Senate, there is hope the bill will be reintroduced next term.

The proposed bill seeks to keep local money in each school district.