Ohio Expands Educational Opportunity Through Passage of State Budget

Last night, Governor DeWine signed H.B.110 (the state’s biennial budget), which empowers more Ohio families to make educational choices for their children. The bill includes several key provisions for expanding school choice and providing more equitable funding to Ohio students regardless of what type of school they attend.

Statement from Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children:
“With the adoption of this budget, Ohio remains a leader when it comes to supporting students and families. Every child deserves access to a high-quality education and the American Dream, and we’re grateful more children in Ohio will be empowered to chase their potential. We also applaud our in-state partners at the School Choice Ohio Alliance for fiercely advocating to expand access to educational opportunity and freedom to more Ohio families, and the champions for children who helped lead the way, including Governor DeWine, Senate President Huffman, and Speaker Bob Cupp who led efforts to make sure that Ohio families came first in this year’s budget.”

Details:

• EdChoice and Cleveland Scholarships increase to $5,500 per pupil in grades K-8 and $7,500 per pupil in grades 9-12
• Expands scholarship eligibility to include siblings of current scholarship students, students in foster and kinship care, and students entering 9th grade
• Increases the value of special needs scholarships
• Eliminates deductions from districts’ state aid and instead directly funds EdChoice and Cleveland scholarship programs and charter schools
• Doubles facility funding to brick and mortar charter schools to $500 per pupil
• Invests $54 million in high-quality charter schools through the Quality Community School Support
• Creates a $750 state tax credit for individual contributions made to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGO). Existing or newly formed SGOs may make contributions to tuition accounts for students enrolled at a private school
• Creates the ACE Education Savings Account program to provide $500 for education expenses for students with income levels below 300% FPL
• Eliminates geographic restrictions on the location of charter schools, essentially moving to direct funding of scholarship programs and charter schools