Legislative Extortion bill would withhold more than $4.3 billion from 700,000 Ohio public school students

HB 671 would hold hundreds of thousands of Ohio public school students hostage. All so lawmakers can avoid losing their unconstitutional arguments.

I decided to take a look at how much money state Rep. Jamie Callender’s public school student extortion bill would cost.

And the price is heavy.

All told, we’re looking at about $4.3 billion, eliminating state funding for nearly 700,000 Ohio public school students.

The bill — House Bill 671 — would withhold all state funding for students in school districts that are suing the state over its private school tuition subsidy program, which a Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge found unconstitutional last summer.

So I took a look at the list of school districts currently involved in Vouchers Hurt Ohio in order to determine what would happen if those districts were subject to the new law.

This analysis does not include the many joint vocational districts that have joined as well as the Educational Service Centers that have. Just local school districts currently listed on the Vouchers Hurt Ohio website.

I also looked by county. Kids in Franklin County districts would lose $500 million alone. They’re not alone. Kids in Butler, Hamilton, Lorain, Lucas, Mahoning, Montgomery, Stark and Summit counties would all lose $100 million or more.

Kids in 78 of Ohio’s 88 counties would lose $3 million or more in each county.

During an election year, it seems like a bad move to introduce a bill that specifically de-fund kids in about 1/2 of your public school districts and 90% of your counties.

I guess that’s the unbridled arrogance of single-party rule.

I’m inserting the list of districts for you ordered by name below, followed by counties and their kids’ losses. Just an absolutely horrific bill for Ohio’s kids.

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