Innovation Ohio has produced a new report that looks at the funding squeeze Ohio's public schools have suffered over the last 4 years. The Innovation Ohio analysis found
1. Over the last ten years, Ohio has been investing up to $3 billion annually in tax cuts for the rich instead of high-quality schools for our students.2. Since 2011, state aid has dropped below 50 percent forcing local revenue now paying for the majority share of the public education funding mix.
3. When factoring in lost revenue to charter schools, education spending as a share of the budget drops to a historic low of 23 percent.
4. In the 2016-17 budget proposal, the percentage of local school districts that face funding cuts jumps from 51 to 67 percent when subtracting the amount of state aid that goes to charters.
5. In too many cases, state funding to charter schools reduces the amount of the total per-pupil funding available to students in local public schools, even with their local revenue.
The immediate fixes suggested by Innovation Ohio include using a portion of the revenue ($4.5 billion) for income tax cuts to instead increase state aid to schools by $1 billion; reducing the cost of new levies for local taxpayers by reinstating the 12.5 percent property tax rollback; base charter funding on the actual cost to educate a charter-enrolled student; and fund charters directly instead of driving that state aid through local schools districts.
Here's the full report.