Last month, in a recommended reading entitled "No Voucher for You!" (December 22, 2005), the Gadfly was critical of Ohio's new voucher program (Ohio Educational Choice Scholarship Program, a.k.a., Ohio EdChoice). It noted that the new statewide voucher program "is showing early signs of over-regulation" and "the Ohio Department of Education evidently wants to reduce the number of students eligible for vouchers, starting with students enrolled in public charter schools."
This commentary was based on a blog, written by Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott, which contends that Ohio charter students won't be eligible for EdChoice vouchers. "The state's view," Elliot writes, "was that the parents in those schools [charters] already have options."
But Elliot is mistaken. Ohio charter school students are eligible to participate in the new voucher program. Voucher eligibility is based on the state rating of the traditional public neighborhood school building a student would be attending if that student were not enrolled in a charter. Herein lies the confusion.
At the Dayton-area voucher meeting, an ODE representative discussed the possibility that charter school students who live within the boundaries of Dayton Public Schools (DPS) may not be eligible for the voucher program. This is not because they are charter students, but because DPS has an open enrollment system. Thus, a charter student who wishes to return to the DPS system has the opportunity to choose any school he/she wishes to attend. Charter students within DPS boundaries cannot prove they would have been assigned to a school listed under academic emergency because DPS, unlike most Ohio districts, does not assign students to buildings based on the neighborhood in which they reside.
The question of whether charter students who live in an open enrollment traditional public school district should, or should not, be eligible for an EdChoice scholarship is a discussion that may be worth having. However, the implication that all Ohio charter school students are ineligible for the new voucher program is simply incorrect.
David L. House II
Program Manager
Sinclair Community College Fast Forward Center
Dayton, OH