In 2022, a coalition of school districts, parents, children and the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding filed a lawsuit against the State of Ohio challenging the constitutionality of the State’s EdChoice voucher program. Eventually, more than 300 school districts joined the lawsuit, and in June 2025, Judge Jaiza Page entered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, deciding that the EdChoice program is unconstitutional and should be enjoined. Following Judge Page’s decision, Representative Jamie Callender introduced House Bill 671, which would allow Ohio’s Department of Education and Workforce to withhold state funding from any public school district that is a complainant in the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit.
Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution states, “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.”
The voucher program at issue in the suit is the Educational Choice Scholarship (EdChoice) Program, which provides students from certain public school districts the opportunity to attend private schools using scholarship money. In her decision in June, Judge Page agreed with the plaintiffs that EdChoice vouchers violate the “thorough and efficient” clause of the Ohio Constitution because the voucher program essentially created a secondary system of common schools made up of private schools. The judge took issue with the fact that non-public schools receiving the EdChoice scholarship do not have oversight systems in place to ensure that those private schools are following EdChoice’s regulations. Further, many of the private schools receiving funding from EdChoice scholarships are religious and many reserve the right to reject applicants based on things like sexual preference, religious or moral beliefs, behavioral or academic problems, or physical or emotional disabilities.
Following Judge Page’s opinion, Attorney General Dave Yost filed an appeal in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning the EdChoice program has remained active and in effect while the appeal is pending. No hearing has been set.
Meanwhile, House Bill 671 would require the withholding of state foundation funds from any district that sues the State, and directs the Ohio Office of Budget and Management to transfer any amount of withheld funds into an escrow fund. Those funds would only be released if the district withdrew from the lawsuit (or if the legal action stopped independently).
The bill, which is still only in House Committee, was met with immediate concern over its constitutionality. Representative Callender now says that he will request an amendment so that the ODEW will withhold only the amount that districts are spending on the lawsuit.