COLUMBUS, Ohio — Another court declared Ohio’s private school voucher program unconstitutional on Thursday, finding it provides a choice to the private schools that must honor the taxpayer-funded vouchers rather than to Ohio families.
The ruling will not immediately affect the EdChoice program, which was allowed to remain operational in anticipation of an appeal. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 10th District Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s June 2025 ruling that found the EdChoice program violates an Ohio constitutional requirement for “a thorough and efficient system of common schools.
“EdChoice, as presently structured and funded, secures with taxpayer funds a competing system of uncommon schools that is not subject to the same obligations imposed on Ohio’s system of common schools,” Judge David Leland wrote in a unanimous opinion.
The court further found that EdChoice harms public schools in three ways: by allowing private schools to cherry-pick students, concentrating participating schools in urban areas and giving voters less reason to approve local school levies. The decision comes in a 2022 lawsuit joined by hundreds of public school districts, known collectively as Vouchers Hurt Ohio, as well as some parents, students and the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding.
“Thus, under the program, it is the participating school, not the student or their family, that chooses whether to admit the student and, consequently, whether the student may utilize taxpayer vouchers at that school,” the court said. “Each one of these effects reinforce one another,” according to the court, “creating a downward spiral of reduced enrollment, reduced revenue, and increased fiscal pressure on schools.
In her lower court ruling, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page rejected plaintiffs’ argument that EdChoice violates the equal protection clause. Because mostly nonminority students take advantage of the program, the plaintiffs argued that Ohio’s nearly 30-year-old school voucher plan, known as EdChoice, has over time created an unconstitutional system of separately funded private schools and led to resegregation of some districts.
