OHIO Funding private schools

The state is aiding stratification of pupils, an opponent argues.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Ohio spends more per pupil on private and religious schools than any other state, dropping about $420 million in the current two-year budget cycle on transportation, textbooks, Internet connections and other expenses, The Plain Dealer reported Sunday.
Supporters of the subsidies argue that the aid offsets the tuition burden on private-school parents.
"The parents paying tuition at nonpublic schools are paying taxes," said Karin O'Neil, director of the Ohio Association of Independent Schools. "Certainly our schools appreciate the funding, and they use it."
Supporters also say taxpayers are getting a bargain because the state's 940 private schools teach 220,000 pupils who would otherwise be in public schools.
The average per-pupil cost of educating a public pupil is more than $7,600, but the state allocates less than $1,000 for private school pupils.
Private schools save the state as much as $2 billion a year, according to the Catholic Conference of Ohio.
Disagrees with funding
But William Phillis, director of a coalition of public school districts that have successfully sued the state over funding levels, said public support of private schools is like subsidizing country club dues for families who don't use city parks.
"The public school system is the system that has the potential to bring all children together and give them a chance to learn to be Americans," Phillis said. "If someone wants to opt out of that system, that's fine. But when government subsidizes stratification, that's a problem."
Thirteen states prohibit state aid to private schools, and 20 provide no transportation to nonpublic school pupils.
Some studies show that although Ohio leads the nation in its support of private schools, it ranks low in its support of public schools. In a six-year period in the 1990s, Ohio fell from 24th to 32nd in its support of public schools, according to a Congressional Quarterly report.
Cleveland's budget
Because of state budget cuts, the Cleveland school district was forced to cancel its once-ambitious summer school last year for all but graduating seniors. The district, expected to ask voters in November to approve a tax increase, also has been hurt by an $8 million shortfall in property tax collections.
Yet the 70,000-pupil district will spend nearly $6.8 million this year transporting 10,055 children to private, parochial and charter schools. Some of the money is reimbursed by the state.
"I'm not in any way opposed to private schools," Phillis said. "There just seems to be a philosophical position that Ohio is really more interested in alternatives to public education rather than fixing public education."
Cleveland Heights resident Diane Konishi said she thinks about the public-private tradeoff when she's driving home from her teaching job at Cleveland's A.B. Hart Middle School and sees a publicly owned school bus dropping off children from a private school.
"I get $40 to spend on school supplies for the whole year -- the whole year," she said. "It's just so unequal. It's heartbreaking, when you think of it."