Hard to believe but 2018 is already here and it is time to once again celebrate Ohio’s students! Next week will be the eighth National School Choice Week. It is the largest celebration of the many opportunities and choices that are now available for students, and their families, to find an education that works best for them – not the education bureaucracy.

The Buckeye Institute has a long history with school choice and education in Ohio. In fact, Buckeye was one of the first groups that offered data to policymakers that showed how school choice in Ohio could help students escape from situations where they were not being served and allowed to flourish.

Of course, school choice means freedom for children to learn in the environment that best suits their needs. But as thousands of Ohioans and many more Americans celebrate what school choice means for them, it is important to realize just how far we have come in Ohio. 

Ohio was, arguably, THE national leader in school choice. In 1990, Ohio created one of the first voucher programs in the nation. This first program led to the groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. The 5-4 decision in that case found that such programs do not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and from that point on, school choice has been able to expand across the nation.

Today, Ohio has five programs that service more than 40,000 students, including those with income challenges, those in failing school districts, and those with certain disabilities.

Legislation pending in the General Assembly will streamline and greatly expand the opportunities afforded by these programs. For example, Ohio is one of only a few states where its largest school choice program, the EdChoice Scholarship, is available only to those students who are assigned to failing schools. However, due to the safe harbor provision, many students are not eligible for EdChoice even if they are in a failing school.

Despite Ohio’s early leadership on school choice, much work remains to empower families. One such area is embracing education savings accounts (ESA), which we called for in our report: Education Savings Accounts: Expanding Education Options for Ohio. ESAs will provide additional incentives to propel Ohio’s educational system forward from a 20^th Century model into one nimble enough to meet the demands of the 21^st Century. By allowing parents to roll over money not spent on tuition, families will have greater flexibility for things like textbooks, tutors, enrolling students in online classes, or even saving money for college.

So far, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Tennessee have embraced ESAs. It is time for Ohio to do the same!

Clearly, 2018 can be an exciting year to improve school choice for Ohio students, and we invite you to join us and so many others, like School Choice Ohio, to celebrate what has been accomplished in strengthening and expanding school choice.

Greg R. Lawson is the research fellow at The Buckeye Institute.