On October 15, 2026, the Tenth District Court of Appeals (the “Court”) issued its decision in Columbus City School District v. State, 2026-Ohio-4047, addressing a constitutional challenge to the EdChoice voucher program (“EdChoice”). This litigation arose due to EdChoice’s expansion from a limited scholarship program to a substantially broader program available to virtually every student across Ohio.
Establishment and Transformation of EdChoice
When EdChoice was originally enacted in 2005, the program offered a limited number of students state-funded scholarships to assist eligible students in attending private schools. The General Assembly enacted nine amendments between 2006 and 2023 that expanded the program’s eligibility requirements and level of public funding. Due to these amendments, EdChoice is now available to virtually all Ohio students, regardless of family income or the quality of the local public education system, and has cost Ohio taxpayers approximately $1.4 billion over the course of the past two fiscal years.
Constitutional Challenge by Public Schools and Students
In 2022, several school districts, coalitions, and students across Ohio filed a lawsuit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas alleging that EdChoice violated Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution, which provides in relevant part:
The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.
In a ruling issued on June 24, 2025, the trial court sided with the plaintiff students and school districts, declared EdChoice unconstitutional and enjoined EdChoice’s continued implementation pending further appeal.
In its decision on the state’s appeal this month, the Court unanimously affirmed the decision of the trial court and found EdChoice to be unconstitutional for several reasons. First, the Court concluded that EdChoice established a separate system of uncommon schools in violation of the requirements of Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution. In reaching this conclusion, the Court first noted the following facts: some EdChoice private schools receive a majority of their funding from EdChoice vouchers; some public school districts receive less state per-pupil funding than some private schools receive in EdChoice voucher funding; and in 2024 and 2025, expenditures for EdChoice vouchers totaled approximately $1.4 billion dollars. In light of these facts, the Court recognized that EdChoice does far more than simply provide incidental financial assistance to private schools. Rather, EdChoice amounts to a “ . . . steady system of support for these schools.”
Ironically, the Court also found that EdChoice actually deprives families of school choice. While EdChoice permits students and parents to apply for attendance at a private school, the Court recognized that it is the private school itself that ultimately chooses which students to admit. While EdChoice schools are prohibited from discriminating based on race in their student admissions process, nothing prevents these schools from discriminating against applicants on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, or physical or mental disability. The Court also found EdChoice fails to secure a system of schools throughout the state since it disproportionately serves students in urban counties. Based on data collected from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (“ODEW”), of those EdChoice schools in which at least 75% of their students receive EdChoice vouchers, 44% are located in Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton Counties. In total, Ohio’s 16 “urban counties” account for nearly 89% of the EdChoice schools in which at least 75% of students receive vouchers. Given this data, the Court found that families in rural counties have substantially fewer opportunities to use EdChoice vouchers.
In its decision, the Court also highlighted the lack of meaningful oversight of EdChoice schools. According to the Court, the underlying purpose of requiring a “thorough and efficient system of common schools” was to ensure that students received a “consistent, high-quality education under uniform state standards.” The Court went so far as to say, “EdChoice turns this foundational principle behind the amendment on its head.” This was because EdChoice schools are subject to less oversight than public schools in areas of fiscal supervision, ratings and compliance, teacher evaluations, discrimination and public transparency. For each of these reasons, the Court found EdChoice secures a separate system of non-public schools in violation of the common schools requirement of Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution.
The Court didn’t stop there. It went on to conclude that EdChoice undermines the fiscal integrity of Ohio’s public school system in three fundamental ways: 1) diverting taxpayer funds to private schools rather than to the public-school system; 2) allowing EdChoice schools to “cherry-pick” students they admit, including the least expensive students to educate, resulting in an increase of the per-pupil cost of educating public-school students; and 3) encouraging public school students to leave public education, thereby undermining a voter’s motive to support local school levies. The Court recognized that each of these factors have created a “downward spiral of reduced enrollment, reduced revenue, and increased fiscal pressure on schools” and undermined the requirement that the legislature provide a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout Ohio.
What Does this Mean for your District?
While the Court ultimately concluded that EdChoice is unconstitutional, it is important to note that this decision is likely to be appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. Further, the Court’s decision in this case did not do away with voucher programs entirely. Rather, the Court specifically indicated that its holding was not to be interpreted as an overarching prohibition on voucher programs. The Court limited its holding to EdChoice in the manner that it is currently structured and funded. Thus, even if the Ohio Supreme Court subsequently affirms the decision of this Court, public school districts across the state could reasonably foresee the General Assembly attempt to restructure EdChoice and/or create other voucher programs consistent with the decision in this case and/or any subsequent decision issued by the Ohio Supreme Court.