Proposed Short-Term Changes to Ohio Law EdChoice Voucher Program; Policy & School Building Eligibility “And” versus “Or” The criteria for school building eligibility for the EdChoice Voucher program was changed in law making it much easier for school buildings to become EdChoice eligible. Beginning with school year 2012-2013, buildings with a D or F grade for BOTH the Value-Added component AND the Performance Index component were EdChoice eligible. Since that time, the criteria changed causing a building to become EdChoice eligible if it met one of those triggers , rather than both. Now, a building is eligible if it received: • Overall building grades of D or F, OR • Value Added grade of F; OR • Performance index ranking in the bottom 10% of all buildings ranked; OR • Four-year graduation rate grade of D or F; OR • K-3 Literacy grade of D or F; OR • Building is in a district subject to an academic distress commission. Ohio went from having 120 EdChoice eligible buildings in the last school year to an expected 1200+ buildings in 2020-2021. 582 of those buildings received overall grades of either “A,” “B,” “C” on the 2018-2019 report card. Solution: Buildings must have two or more of the above components with D or F grades before qualifying as EdChoice eligible. Default EdChoice Program Ohio law currently requires that if a student qualifies for an EdChoice voucher both through the income-based EdChoice criteria and the report card performance of their building, the default is the EdChoice voucher based on building eligibility. This means that even though the student would qualify for a state-paid voucher, the payment for the voucher must come from the school district. Since the original premise for offering vouchers to students was the notion that some students’ families may not have the wherewithal to access a different education “choice” because of the cost of tuition, the income-based EdChoice voucher program ought to be the default for students who qualify for both programs. Solution: Replace the current default mechanism in Ohio law to make the income-based voucher the default when a student qualifies for both programs. Safe Harbor Ohio appropriately put in place a “safe harbor” provision for the school years 2014-2015, 20152016 and 2016-2017, to allow time for school districts to adjust to new testing requirements, the phase-in of the new report card and other accountability changes. By law, the “safe harbor” meant that performance during those three school years could not be counted toward sanctions such as eligibility for the EdChoice voucher program. However, once the “safe harbor” period ended, Ohio law was not amended to remove the restriction against using those years for determining EdChoice eligibility. That means, if a building’s performance improved over the “safe harbor” period, the improvement could not be used to keep the building from becoming EdChoice eligible. Instead, the requirement that report card data from “two of the most recent three years” be used for this determination meant that data from school years 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 (along with 2017-2018) were used for the current year’s eligibility. For example, the performance of students who graduated in the class of 2016 is being used to determine EdChoice eligibility. Solution: If building performance improved during the “safe harbor” years, ODE should be directed to utilize that data when determining EdChoice eligibility. K-3 Literacy Buildings are considered EdChoice eligible if they have a D or F grade for K-3 Literacy. Currently, almost half the elementary school buildings in the state receive a D or F in K-3 Literacy. This is largely due to the fact that the K-3 Literacy component is flawed and does not accurately reflect the overall K-3 Literacy performance. It simply measures how successful districts and buildings are at moving students from “off track” to “on track” in order to be proficient under Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee. This means a building may become EdChoice eligible because of the performance of a small percentage of its students were not moved to “on track.” Solution: Remove the K-3 Literacy measure from the criteria that makes a building EdChoice eligible. Long term, the K-3 Literacy measure on the report card needs to be changed to accurately reflect the building’s performance. Two of the Most Recent Three Years Currently, EdChoice eligibility is based on data from two of the most recent three years (except the safe harbor years – see above). This criterion may be punishing buildings that have made improvement or have one year when performance slipped somewhat, but overall performance continues to improve. Solution: Require that performance be measured by “three consecutive years”. Value Added Some improvements were made in HB 166, the biennial budget bill, to better reflect district performance on the value-added progress dimension of the report card. The first improvement was the rescaling of grades based on standard error. The legislation also changed the “demotion” component of value-added. Previously, a district could not be assigned an “A” if any subgroup scored below a “B.” New legislation changes the subgroup performance to a “C” or higher. These changes ensure that a school’s or district’s progress is evaluated more accurately. However, the criteria for EdChoice eligibility continues to allow years when this change was not in effect to determine a building’s fate. Solution: Require ODE to recompute the overall building grades for the school years that will affect EdChoice eligibility to match the legislature’s own conclusion that the old law was unfair as evidenced in HB 166. Overall Building Grades Ohio currently has buildings that are considered high performing (overall grade of A, B or C) on the list of buildings whose students qualify for EdChoice vouchers due to the problems and inconsistencies already listed. While the suggested changes may alleviate some of the EdChoice building designations, it is inconceivable that a building be EdChoice eligible when it has an overall passing grade. Solution: Any building receiving an overall grade of A, B or C should not be subject to EdChoice eligibility and should be removed from eligibility list. Overall building grade is already being used to exempt high performing buidlings from some EdChoice eligibility triggers. High School Students Already Attending Private Schools The EdChoice Voucher program has long required students (except for kindergarten) to attend a public school prior to applying for a voucher. This practice serves to ensure the state’s investment in private school tuition is aimed at students who otherwise would not be able to exercise an educational “choice.” The payment of private school tuition would not be directed toward students whose parents were already paying tuition and would not have otherwise attended an EdChoice eligible building. Furthermore, the district of residence would receive state funding through the formula for the student as the student would be counted in the district’s enrollment. However, changes in HB 166 now allow students who have never attended a public school to qualify for a voucher to attend a private high school, if the public high school of residence is a designated as an EdChoice-eligible building. School districts have not received any state funding for these students due to HB 166 providing funding at FY 19 levels which did not include these students in the district’s enrollment count, yet the full voucher amount will be deducted from the district’s payments. Once a student receives the voucher, they are eligible to receive it for the rest of their K-12 educational career. Solution: Reverse the change in HB 166 and require high school students to attend a public school in the year prior to applying for an EdChoice voucher. Short-Term Relief For a number of reasons cited above, districts are experiencing extreme increases in the number of vouchers being deducted from state payments. At the same time, foundation funding for education has been frozen at FY19 levels, so no additional state funds have been made available to cover the state share of the cost of vouchers. While districts have received Student Wellness and Success Funds (SWSFs) for this biennium, these funds are purposed for removing “non-educational barriers to student success.” They cannot be used to pay for EdChoice vouchers. Also, while districts can supplant funds already being spent on qualifying expenditures with SWSFs, this does not account for normal increases in educational costs, nor does it offset the extreme increases in deductions for EdChoice vouchers. Solution: The state should directly fund new vouchers by providing a state appropriation to cover the full cost of any new vouchers awarded during the current biennium. December 10, 2019 Dear Speaker Householder and Senate President Obhof, We are deeply concerned with the negative impact expanding the EdChoice voucher program in House Bill 166 (biennial operating budget), will have on public education in Ohio. The number of students eligible to receive vouchers will almost double next school year due to the changes, resulting in a significant financial impact on school districts across the state. Expanding vouchers undermines the ability of public schools to provide educators and students with the resources they need to succeed. While the state budget expanded the number of EdChoice recipients, it froze funding levels for the 2020-2021 school year at the 2019-2020 levels—meaning greater losses as tens of millions more dollars will be siphoned away from public schools. The effect is compounded by the fact that districts not only lose their state aide but they also lose revenues locally supported by voters to support kids in their home public school. Some districts will lose as much as 66 percent of their state aide next school year, the total statewide reduction in state support only for public education is almost $28 million in one year. From school districts in Cuyahoga County such as North Royalton, Beachwood, Rocky River and Cleveland Heights, in Central Ohio’s Olentangy Local and Upper Arlington schools down to Hamilton County in the Cincinnati City district, school districts and children will be heavily affected by this policy decision. There are school districts in all of our House districts that are suffering from budget changes, the effects seen are not limited to political party (Tables 1 & 2). We understand the benefit that EdChoice vouchers offer so many residents in Ohio. But we should all be concerned with the significant cost to the remaining children and families whom we also all represent. We ask that we can work together to find a solution to this problem. The Ohio Federation of Teachers has reached out to leadership from both caucuses in the House and Senate with remedies to this issue. For immediate relief, a sensible approach would be to reimburse school districts so their scholarship deduction does not exceed a 10% loss of Foundation Aid. School districts are requesting a response or some action by Feb 1, 2020. In good faith, we formally request a meeting to discuss these amendments in order to find some solutions during this General Assembly. CC: Emilia Sykes , House Minority Leader Jim Butler , House Speaker Pro Tempore Jonathon McGee , House Majority Chief of Staff Samantha Herd , House Minority Chief of Staff Kenny Yuko , Senate Minority Leader Bob Peterson , Senate President Pro Tempore John Barron , Senate Majority Chief of Staff Mike Rowe , Senate Minority Chief of Staff Minority Dan McCarthy, Director of Legislative Affairs to the Governor Giles Allen, Legislative Liason to the Governor Emma Cardone, Legislative Liason to the Governor Matt Dolan, Chair, Senate Finance Committee Scott Oelslager, Chair, House Finance Committee Sincerely, Janine Boyd Ohio House District 9 Stephanie Howse Ohio House District 11 Bride Rose Sweeney Ohio House District 14 Michael J. Skindell Ohio House District 13 Terrence Upchurch Ohio House District 10 Juanita Brent Ohio House District 12 Kent Smith Ohio House District 8 Phil Robinson Ohio House District 6 School Districts with More Than 16% of Foundation Aid Deducted for State Scholarship Programs, Table 1 FY 2616 Data are from the Ohio Department of Education's FY 2616 ?rst reconciliation {Final payment ?le. Scholarship Deductions as a Percentage of Foundation Aid Allocation County District FY16 Cuya hoga Beachwood City SD 66.4% Cuyahoga Cleveland l-rts?Llniy City 64.6% Cuya hoga Mayfleld City SD 66.6% Cuya hoga Crange City SD 26.6% Cuyahoga Independence Local SD 266% Hamilton Indian Hill Ear Yill SD 24.6% Hamilton Sycamore Community City SD 16.6% FranI-tlin LlpperArtington City SD 16.2% Cuyahoga Richmond Heights Local SD 16.2% LaI-te Kirtland Local SD 16.6% Cuya hoga IINestlalre City SD 16.6% Cuyahoga Rocky River City SD 14.6% Delaware Clentangy Local SD 14.4% Hamilton Cincinnati City SD 162% Cuyahoga Chagrin Falls Ex yill SD 12.6% Cuyahoga Euclid City SD 12.6% Cuya hoga Solon City SD 12.2% lSeauga Henston Local SD 12.6% FranI-tlin New Albany?Plain Local SD 12.6% Summit Copley-Faina'wn City SD 11.6% Montgomery Jefferson Township Local SD 11.6% Summit Reyere Local SD 11.6% Cuya hoga Height 11.6% LaI-te WicI-tlitie City SD 11.6% Mahoning Boardman Local SD 11.6% Cuyahoga North Royalton City SD 16.6% Cuyahoga Cuyahoga Heights Local SD 16.6% Manoning Youngstown City SD 16.4% Cuyahoga South City 16.4% Lorain Ayon LaI-te City SD 16.1% Ceauga West Ceauga Local SD 16.6% Table 2 Note* the column labeled “Total Foundation Aid Generated by Scholarship Students Less Scholarship Transfers FY 19” is the unfunded dollars districts loss