President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill, which he signed into law on July 4, includes the first federal school voucher.
The voucher program would let taxpayers make donations to nonprofits in exchange for credit on federal tax bills, and then the nonprofits would grant scholarships to students.
William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, is an opponent of the national school voucher.
Phillis described it as “one more bullet aimed at public schools,” saying public schools are under “severe attack.”
“Instead of the federal government giving funding to public education like the federal government has done in the past, they're going to be, by way of this tuition tax credit scheme, they're going to be giving the tax money to private schools, as opposed to public schools,” Phillis said.
Ohio already has a school voucher program called EdChoice. The program has existed since 1996.
Phillis has been an opponent of EdChoice for years. He was part of the lawsuit DeRolph vs. State, which claimed that Ohio’s public school funding was uneven and inadequate for public schools with primarily low-income students. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the state's system of funding public education was unconstitutional.
With the new federal voucher, which is expected to begin in 2027, students will be able to use EdChoice and a federal voucher at the same time.
“There's a grand scheme here to privatize public education altogether,” Phillis said.
“What started out to be a program to provide some opportunity for poor kids to go to a private school ends up being a program that's slanted toward the very wealthy,” Phillis said. “The whole thing is a sham.”
On Monday, Attorney General Dave Yost held a press conference about EdChoice to address the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision that the state voucher program is unconstitutional.
In Jan. of 2022, EdChoice came under a lawsuit by several school districts and parents, who claimed the program was unconstitutional. Last month, a Franklin County judge upheld the complaint on three grounds. Yost said he would be filing an appeal on Wednesday explaining why the trial court erred.
“We do not agree with the decision. That's why they make appeals courts,” Yost said.
EdChoice is currently still in operation and will continue for the 2025-2026 school year.
Yost was joined at the press conference by other proponents of EdChoice, including Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman; Rabbi Eric Frank, president of School Choice Ohio; State Rep. Jamie Callender; EdChoice voucher parent Monica Williams; Aaron Baer, president of Center for Christian Virtue; and Tom Fisher of EdChoice Legal Advocates.
