Ohio
Judge rules Ohio’s EdChoice school vouchers are illegal, but will ruling stick? | Opinion
Columbus, Bexley, and Worthington schools among plaintiffs suing state
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com.
In a late-June ruling, a Democratic Franklin County Common Pleas judge outlawed spending Ohioans’ tax money to help parents pay private school tuition for the state’s K-12 pupils via the state’s EdChoice school voucher program.
Because Judge Jaiza Page issued her sure-to-be-appealed decision amid the General Assembly’s budget-writing frenzy, some voters may have missed it. And that is, or should be, a problem for Ohioans who like to keep an eye on how the politicians on Capitol Square spend the people’s money. That’s especially so given the sneaky way that voucher fans expanded voucher spending during the 30 years since vouchers first surfaced in the 1995-97 state budget.
For one thing, as inaugurated then, vouchers could only be used by pupils living in the Cleveland school district. And the total amount of tax money the Republican-run legislature agreed to spend on Ohio’s first “school choice” venture in the 1995 budget amounted to about $5.25 million, The Plain Dealer reported. In terms of today’s population, that’s about 44 cents per Ohio resident.
The budget Gov. Mike DeWine just signed allots about $2.44 billion for voucher programs over the next two years — or about $205 per Ohio resident, an incredible increase resulting from stealthy, year-by-year legislative scheming.
Page’s decision was a clear-cut victory for the public school systems supporting the Vouchers Hurt Ohio coalition (lead plaintiff in the lawsuit: the Columbus schools). Among the coalition’s many other members: The Bexley, Upper Arlington and Worthington schools; the Dayton schools; and such Greater Cleveland districts as Brecksville-Broadview Heights, Cleveland Heights-University Heights, Mayfield, Richmond Heights and Shaker Heights schools; DeWine’s Greene County school district, the Cedar Cliff schools; and Republican Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman’s hometown district, the Lima schools.
How vouchers violate Ohio’s constitution
Reduced to essentials, the judge ruled that Ohio’s school voucher spending violates the state constitution on a number of fronts. That’s the state constitution that Ohio’s 99 state representatives and 33 state senators must swear to uphold before they can take their seats in the General Assembly.
The state will appeal Page’s decision to the Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals, which encompasses Franklin County. If the all-Democratic appellate court upholds the Common Pleas ruling — it likely will — the state would undoubtedly ask the Ohio Supreme Court, with a 6-1 Republican majority, to save the voucher program. And the Supreme Court’s GOP incumbents have shown zero appetite for challenging the similarly Republican-run General Assembly.
Page sided with the voucher foes on three of the arguments they made.
First, the plaintiffs argued that vouchers breached the Ohio Constitution, which requires the General Assembly to create and fund “a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state.” But she found that “the evidence … [showed] that, in expanding the EdChoice program to its current form, the General Assembly has created a system of uncommon private schools by directly providing private schools with over $700 million in funding.”
Page said the plaintiffs had also shown the state had additionally violated Ohio’s constitution to maintain a “thorough and efficient” school system when General Assembly Republicans decided against fully funding what’s known as the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan. Result: Ohio public schools received $6.48 billion in state aid instead of $7.24 billion for fiscal year 2022. She said the difference was close to the amount of state voucher funding that same fiscal year.
Finally, the judge agreed with voucher foes that because the program “provides private religious schools with approximately $1 billion in public school funds [the voucher program] violates … the Ohio Constitution by giving a religion or other sect the exclusive right to, or control of, a part of the school funds of Ohio.”
Voucher partially to blame for rising property taxes
What the judge didn’t say, but fairly might have observed, is that the creation and steady increases in Ohio’s state-tax-subsidies for non-public schools has been Statehouse government by stealth: start small, then, budget-by-budget, year by year, divert more and more public school money for the benefit of private schools. The resulting financial squeeze on public school districts is a big reason why skyrocketing property taxes are hammering Ohio homeowners — property tax burdens the General Assembly is making heavier by steadily diverting public school money to private schools.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com.
Thirty former Ohio State football players, including some former NFL players, have agreed to join a federal lawsuit against the university over the sexual abuse of student athletes decades ago by a team doctor, a lawyer in the case said Thursday.
The lawyer, Rocky Ratliff, said in an interview that the men came forward some eight years after the first lawsuit was filed because they needed to overcome the shame of revealing that they’d been sexually abused by another man and the fear of taking on the university publicly.
They are “tearful and living with it,” Ratliff said. “But as this case progresses on, they see how Ohio State’s treating athletes from the university and I think they want people to know it’s OK, even if it is male to male (sexual abuse), to come forward.”
Ohio State has fought lawsuits in federal court since 2018 brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss. Hundreds say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998. He died in 2005.
The men have signed letters of agreement to join a lawsuit filed by other student-athletes who say they are victims of Strauss, Ratliff said.
Of the 30, only three have agreed to make their identities public, Ratliff said. They are Al Washington, Ray Ellis and Keith Ferguson, he said. All were members of the 1980 Rose Bowl team and were recruited by and played for legendary coach Woody Hayes.
Some other former football players have settled with the school in sealed agreements that kept their names a secret, Ratliff said.
In a statement, Ohio State said it has “sincerely and persistently tried to reconcile with survivors, including former football student-athletes, through monetary and non-monetary means, including settlements, counseling services and other medical treatment.”
As of April 15, the university has settled with 317 survivors for more than $61 million, and is remains actively engaged in mediation, the school said.
In an interview, Washington said it was hard to talk about the abuse he suffered and recalled being subjected to “unlawful” physical exams by Strauss when he was 18 or 19. He and the other players tried to make light of it with each other and joke about it.
“But it was really uncomfortable,” said Washington, now 67.
He didn’t discuss it with others over the decades, but watching the 2025 documentary film “Surviving Ohio State” put it back into his thoughts.
“As a matter of fact, I couldn’t make it through that movie,” Washington said. “The pain and anguish that I saw, I just couldn’t take it.”
Strauss was on the faculty and medical staff and Ohio State. He retired in 1998 with emeritus status. School trustees revoked that mark of honor three years ago.
Washington was drafted in 1981 by the New York Jets and played one season for the team. Ellis, a former defensive back, had a seven-year NFL career from 1981 to 1987, playing with the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns. Ferguson, a former defensive end, played in the NFL from 1981 to 1990, including stints with the San Diego Chargers and the Detroit Lions.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers and former Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka is defending former Buckeye Carnell Tate.
Tate has received some scrutiny after he was selected as the first wide receiver in the 2026 NFL Draft, despite not having been Ohio State’s top receiver target in college. Appearing on the “Up and Adams” show May 6, Egbuka shut down the narrative that meant Tate would not find success with the Tennessee Titans.
“I mean, we can see the correlation,” Egbuka said. “That was the same talk that was about me when I was coming out of the draft. At the end of the day, it’s all semantics. If you can play football, you can play football, and Carnell Tate can play football.”
Selected with the No. 20 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Egbuka finished his final college season with 1,011 receiving yards, more than 300 fewer than Jeremiah Smith in his freshman year. Egbuka led the team in receptions with 81 compared to Smith’s 76 catches.
With Buccaneers wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin Jr. playing fewer than 10 games during the 2025 season due to injuries, Egbuka led the team in receiving yards with 938. He finished fifth in 2025 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.
Tate, the No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft, was called a “talented player” by New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers during Bleacher Report’s draft night coverage on April 23, but Nabers questioned Tate’s selection.
“I don’t see him being a number one,” Nabers said. “He hasn’t been the number one on the team he’s been on. You have to be a number one on the team that you’re coming from to be a number one receiver on the team you’re going to. … You can’t be the second.”
Green Bay Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons, also on the broadcast, quickly dismissed Nabers’ statement by bringing up that former Buckeyes receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba was a second option while in college.
“You said you got to be number one on the team that you’re coming from. … [Jaxon Smith-Njigba] was not number one. Bro, you got to understand that the number one [Ohio State] player will be the number one pick in the draft next year. … Give him a chance to fulfill the role,” Parsons said.
Tate finished the 2025 season with 875 receiving yards and nine touchdowns, second to Smith with 1,243 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns.
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