Ohio voucher program: Data shows nearly 90% of participants are not low-income

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- State data shows nearly 90% of students enrolled in Ohio's voucher program this year are not low-income qualified, a dramatic turnabout from the program's stated initial purpose.

Ohio's K-12 voucher program has made headlines recently as lawmakers consider trimming millions in state funds for public schools while expanding funds for state vouchers. Ohio offers five voucher programs, which provide state scholarships for students to attend private school. Of them, EdChoice and EdChoice Expansion have the largest participation by far.

The EdChoice program began to help low-income students in struggling districts, but the EdChoice-Exp program made it so any Ohio student could get at least a partial scholarship, regardless of income. The expansion rapidly increased scholarship enrollment, but most of the recipients are not low-income eligible. See previous coverage of vouchers in the video player above.

According to state data, fewer EdChoice and EdChoice-Exp participants qualified as low-income this school year when compared to last. Further, according to a report from the General Assembly, 17% of EdChoice-Exp scholarships go to the state's top earners, all making more than $200,000 per year. This means the third-largest percentile of scholarship participants are among the top 8.4% wealthiest households in Ohio.

Wealthy recipients receive less state money, so payments to top tax bracket participants only made up 3% of all voucher payments, $11 million. Proponents of scholarships say helping low-income students isn't the only goal of vouchers.

"This is about more than economic need. This is about providing all families with a choice and flexibility in education," Donovan O'Neil, director of Ohio's chapter of Americans For Prosperity, said.

Scholarship participation skyrocketed once universal vouchers were implemented. However, private school enrollment did not follow the same trend, indicating that many of the students who embraced universal scholarships were already affording private school beforehand.

Many Democratic lawmakers, public school advocates and teachers' unions point to state data like this to say vouchers no longer help low-income students and instead defer money from public schools.

“Ohioans deserve to live in a state where everyone can succeed. That means fully and fairly funding public schools rather than handing out vouchers to private or unregulated charter schools," State Rep. Anita Somani (D-Dublin) said.

Vouchers also cannot help all Ohio students. Eight counties -- Carroll, Champaign, Hardin, Holmes, Meigs, Morgan, Noble and Vinton -- have no eligible EdChoice voucher schools, representing around 35,000 students, according to U.S. Census data. Comparatively, there are only 21,184 low-income eligible EdChoice and EdChoice-Exp students this school year.

"There is a lack of supply of schools that accept these dollars, especially in rural communities," O'Neil said. "Maybe the numbers aren't capturing lower-income families in rural areas simply because the option is not available."

Nearly 1 million students are participating in the EdChoice-Exp voucher program this school year. Ohio lawmakers will continue to debate school funding budget choices in the House, then the Senate before implementation this summer.