Ohio is spending nearly $1 billion on private school vouchers. That compares with the $9.79 billion the state spends for all primary and secondary schools. Ohio House Bill 407 would have required that all private schools report annually to say how their voucher monies were spent, the income of the families that got the funds, and that all students take the same standardized tests. All these items and more were stripped from the bill by powerful religious and private school lobbyists (”Panel guts bill requiring private schools to show voucher spending,” Nov. 22).
What are these schools hiding? Why not have total transparency? These are my tax monies they are spending, and I would like the public, especially the parents of these students, to know what they are “buying’ by sending their kids to these schools.
Some of these funds are going to schools that serve the upper 1%: Why am I supporting these kids when their parents can afford those schools? And why cannot all parents know the schools’ track record of teaching their loved ones instead of having to take a marketing person’s information about a school? Put these items back into HB 407!
Judith Hauser,
Lyndhurst