Possible EdChoice changes hurt Elyria Schools, superintendent says

Potential changes to EdChoice Scholarships will help Lorain County school districts, except for Elyria and Lorain schools. Although the reworked Senate Bill 89 reduces the number of school buildings eligible for the vouchers, Elyria Schools will see a building added to the list. Westwood Middle now will qualify for the vouchers, even though it got a "C" overall on its 2018-2019 state report card. Elyria Early Childhood Center also would be added to the list. If a school is deemed as failing in one of six particular areas connected to the Ohio Department of Education report cards, students are offered performance- and income-based vouchers to go to a private school. EdChoice was started in Ohio in 2006 based off a nationwide initiative. Elyria Superintendent Ann Schloss expressed frustrations with the changes, saying it's another bill from the state legislature that hurts urban districts. EdChoice originally was designed to help students get scholarships to private schools if that student attended a failing school outlined by the state report cards. Senate Bill 89 passed the House and Senate, and now sits on the governor's desk to sign into law. Originally, more than 1,200 schools would have been eligible for EdChoice, prompting outcry from local school districts. Buildings in Avon, Wellington, Midview, Columbia, Clearview, Sheffield-Sheffield Lake and three Oberlin schools would have all been added to the list. The Senate bill moves that number down to less than 500. With the changes, only Elyria and Lorain buildings remain on the list for Lorain County. The bill made two changes: the cutoff for income-based scholarships from 200 percent of the federal poverty level to 250 percent and the criteria performance-based scholarships will focus on the lowest-performing buildings in individual districts. "When you read the two amendments, they point toward urban districts," Schloss said. "In my mind, once again, they're making judgments based on demographics. And we know, a lot has been written about that with assessments. That's probably one of the things that bothers me the most." Other school districts that still qualify for EdChoice vouchers include Columbus Schools, Canton Schools, Toledo Schools, Akron Schools and Cincinnati Schools. Another piece to EdChoice that bothers Schloss is that students who have never attended Elyria Schools can still get a voucher if they live within the district boundaries. It's automatically moving to a private school without giving Elyria Schools a chance, Schloss said. And the money the district would have gotten for that student instead moves to the private schools. Schloss said the new bill will hurt the district financially. "It's another unfunded mandate," Schloss said. "The dollars we get for each student goes directly to one of the private schools, yet we still have to service them if they're special needs; we're still busing them there. We're still paying for a lot of things and they're getting the money." In the Ohio Senate, Nathan Manning, R-North Ridgeville, voted in favor of the bill. He said he does disagree with some aspects of it, like how some A, B and C schools can qualify for EdChoice vouchers. "Unfortunately, we were in a tough spot where it was going to expand to over 1,200 schools, so we needed to make a decision on whether to compromise or let that happen, so that's why I voted for it. There are a lot of things in there I didn't agree with … but at the end of the day, I just couldn't let it expand to over 1,200 schools." Because Lorain Schools is in an Academic Distress Commission, every school building is qualified to be on the EdChoice list. If the district were not in ADC, three buildings could be taken off the list. Not all of Elyria Schools buildings will be on the EdChoice list, including Northwood and Hamilton. The new school buildings have not yet been taken into account. Qualifying for EdChoice still depends on the state mandated testing results, which Schloss has long argued doesn't give an accurate picture of students and districts. "When are we going to realize that the way we're grading districts with the state tests is the wrong way," Schloss said. "Our accountability system, in my opinion, needs an overhaul. We're judging so much on just those tests that we all know have issues." State Rep. Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, voted against the bill, although she said she understands why others voted in favor of it. "This is one of those votes that you really struggle with," she said. "One of things that probably bothers me the most is that the state should pay for this." When a student goes into an EdChoice program, they can stay there for all 12 years, putting additional burden on a school district, Manning said. She said she also tried to fix why districts have to put together IEPs for students that are on EdChoice, but it didn't work due to disagreements in the Statehouse. Avon Lake Superintendent Bob Scott's district isn't impacted by the changes. None of the district's schools was going to be on the EdChoice list, and they still aren't going to be. But that doesn't mean Scott likes the bill. "It's not a good thing for schools. Basically it's a run around everybody. If you want to fund charter schools, if you want to send money to non-public schools as a state legislature, then do it. Don't keep running around and trying to cover your tracks and make it look like you're doing something you're not doing — which is basically funding public education correctly and not taking it away from them and giving it to other entities." Activist groups and lobbyists have urged Gov. Mike DeWine to veto the bill. Ohio School Boards Association, Buckeye Association of School Administrators and Ohio Association of School Business officials released a statement that expressed disappointment over the bill passing with little notice and little public input. The letter said the groups appreciated the number of schools qualifying for EdChoice were lower, but that some of the changes did not make sense. One of those changes was that 110 of the 473 schools on the list got an A, B or C on the state report card. "Private schools don't have to take the assessments and aren't judged the same way. It's just not a level playing field in that way," Schloss said. "To include schools that get A's, B's and C's and to only focus it on poverty and those demographics, I have a huge issue with." Contact Laina Yost at (440) 329-7121 or lyost@chroniclet.com.