Private schools cherry pick students. It is unconstitutional to give them taxpayer money.

It's 'raining' in Ohio. Where is our money?

Once again, property taxes for school funding is at the top of Ohio news.

Once again, I remind Ohioans that the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled funding schools with property taxes is unconstitutional. Three times.

Dating back over three decades. What's the rush, “politickers?"

Someone owes us some serious coin. Take it out of the rainy-day fund, cause it's raining...

David Hill, Andover

Public tax dollars for public schools

Re “GOP's school funding system has hurt Ohio's education rank,” Feb. 14: Thank you Sen. Bill DeMora for sounding the alarm about Ohio’s expansion of universal vouchers funded with public tax dollars.

Vouchers hurt Ohio. As the current lawsuit against the State of Ohio makes clear, it is unconstitutional to use public tax dollars for private schools.

Yet in its current budget the legislature set aside more than a billion dollars to do just that.

More: Should state allocate even more public funds for unregulated private schools? O-H-I-NO.

Private school vouchers are nothing more than a rebate and refund program for 75% of voucher families who are already enrolling their kids in private schools.

Private schools often use race, religion, family financial status and disabilities to cherry pick students who will receive a giveaway of $8,500 for each high school student.

Taxpayers are already alarmed about rising property taxes and too many school levies on the ballot.

From Whitehall and Worthington to Bexley and Columbus, over 200 Ohio public school districts have joined this lawsuit to ensure that the neighborhood public schools we attended are funded fully and fairly as a key tenet of democracy.

Columbus schools has millions. Senator lying on Republicans to feed money to school union.

The siren has been sounded. Keep our public tax dollars in our public schools.

Barb Seckler, Columbus

A crooked government system

I admire Gov. Mike DeWine as a leader of Ohio government.

But his appointment of Sam Randazzo to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, for the benefit of First Energy management and stockholders was never a mistake.

Our pay-to-play government is directly responsible for Sam Randazzo allowing First Energy managers to allegedly steal billions of dollars from Ohio taxpayers.

Where are the ethics reforms? Ohio has done almost nothing since 2020 Householder arrest

How could Mike DeWine, John Husted, and all the other politicians First Energy allegedly gave campaign funds and bribes to not know exactly what was going on, from start to finish?

But don’t blame the politicians.

They are players in a crooked government system that allows this behavior, as long as it stays under-the-table and does not become too egregious.

And this is just the tip-of-the-iceberg.

Want to slow the stealing of government funds? Eliminate lobbying and non-government funding of political campaigns. Only then can we-the-people hope to run a more truthful and healthy government.

Ted Sinks, Delaware

More school districts must sue

Some parents send their children to private schools. That has always been their right. But should taxpayers foot the bill?

Article 6, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution says public tax dollars can only be used for public schools. Ohio’s expanded voucher program provides taxpayer money for private schooling.

Is this program constitutional?

No.

So what? Well, private schools can decide who to accept or retain. They can make curriculum and spending decisions without oversight from elected school board members.

ECOT, an online, private, for-profit charter school that closed in 2018 after being investigated for inflating student enrollment data, still owes Ohio $117 million. With increased taxpayer funding for private education and little public oversight, when will the next ECOT scandal emerge?

The current state budget allows families making up to $135,000 per year to get an EdChoice voucher for private school.

Already, Ohio has spent $15 million more for this program than was estimated.

What can we do about this?

Ask your local public school district officials if they have signed onto the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit.

If not, urge them to find out how vouchers hurt public schools: https://vouchershurtohio.com/.

Deborah Cooper, Worthington

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Why Ohioans are owed big money for property tax school funding