Columbus City School District et al. v. State of Ohio et al.
A panel of three judges from the 10th District Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the Educational Choice Scholarship Program (“EdChoice”) violated Article VI, section 2 of the Ohio Constitution. The decision affirmed a lower court ruling that also declared EdChoice unconstitutional for the first time in June 2025. The Court of Appeals decision allows EdChoice to continue pending an anticipated appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.
A link to the Court of Appeals’ full decision has been provided above.
This case is the first significant challenge to the state’s private school voucher programs in roughly thirty years. In Simmons-Harris v. Goff, 1999-Ohio-77, the Supreme Court upheld the Cleveland Pilot Program on the grounds that it was a narrow and experimental program to address the unique needs of a single school district, but cautioned that an “expanded school voucher program or similar program could damage public education” and therefore “be subject to a renewed constitutional challenge.” The pilot program has since evolved into the EdChoice voucher program we have today, expanding from an initial appropriation of roughly $5.25 million annually to over a billion dollars in fiscal year 2025 alone.
The Ohio Constitution requires the General Assembly to “secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools” while prohibiting “religious or other sects” from having “any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.” The Court of Appeals declared that the current scope and funding level of EdChoice secures a separate system of non-public schools contrary to the mandates of the Ohio Constitution and laid out several additional concerns with EdChoice that violate the State’s requirement for a “common” school system:
- EdChoice gives broad discretion to private schools to admit or deny students and the lack of meaningful constraints imposed by the state. For example, ODEW acknowledged that a private school may discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, or physical or mental disability while receiving EdChoice funds.
- EdChoice provides little to no access to rural students. ODEW provided a list of 154 private schools where 75% or more of their students received vouchers. 44% of those schools are located in Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton County. That number expands to 89% when accounting for Ohio’s 16 “urban counties.” Despite being funded from statewide tax revenue, large portions of the State, particularly in the southeast and northeast, have little to no access to the program due to the lack of private schools in these areas.
- EdChoice lacks meaningful oversight regarding fiscal supervision, ratings and compliance, teacher evaluations, and public transparency. When questioned about how ODEW ensures that private schools comply with the few requirements that do exist, ODEW’s Director of Non-Public Educational Options testified that “there is no monitoring system.”
The Court went a step further to declare that EdChoice undermined the financial integrity of the public school system. By simultaneously diverting taxpayer funds to private schools and encouraging the departure of students from public schools, the judges opined that EdChoice effectively increased the per-pupil cost of educating students who remain in public schools while giving voters less reason to approve local school levies.
The judges concluded that the structure and funding level of the EdChoice voucher program “operates at the expense and detriment of Ohio’s public schools, and, consequently, the children who depend on those public schools for instruction, support, and opportunities that shape their future.”
Andy Wilson, Ohio’s Interim Attorney General, has already announced his intent to appeal the decision.