Ohio appeals court rules EdChoice voucher program unconstitutional; appeal expected

Mixed · 2On Thursday 15 October 2026, a three-judge panel of Ohio's 10th District Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the state's EdChoice private school voucher program is unconstitutional. 1 2 Mixed · 2The ruling affirmed a June 2025 lower-court ruling that EdChoice violates the Ohio constitutional requirement for "a thorough and efficient system of common schools" (Article VI, Section 2). 1 2 Centre · 1Judge David Leland wrote that EdChoice, "as presently structured and funded, secures with taxpayer funds a competing system of uncommon schools that is not subject to the same obligations imposed on Ohio’s system of common schools." 1

Mixed · 2The court said the choice belongs to participating private schools, which have broad discretion over admissions, rather than to families, and Reason reports Leland called the defendants' appeals to choice "a fundamental misnomer". 1 2 Centre · 1According to AP, the court also found EdChoice harms public schools by letting private schools cherry-pick students, concentrating participating schools in urban areas and giving voters less reason to approve local levies, creating what it called a "downward spiral of reduced enrollment, reduced revenue, and increased fiscal pressure on schools." 1 Centre · 1Leland also wrote that the court was not suggesting "that school vouchers in all forms violate the Ohio Constitution," only that EdChoice does "as presently structured, funded, and challenged in this case." 1

Mixed · 2The case is a 2022 lawsuit brought by a coalition of hundreds of public school districts known as Vouchers Hurt Ohio, along with some parents, students and the Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding; Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page rejected their separate equal protection argument. 1 2 Mixed · 2EdChoice dates to 2005 in its Traditional Plan, with scholarships up to $6,166 for elementary and middle school and $8,408 for high school; an income-based Expansion Program followed in 2013, and Ohio moved to a universal voucher program in 2023, among the largest in the US. EdChoice, the nonprofit, says the program supports more than 100,000 Ohio families. 2 1 Mixed · 2The ruling does not immediately affect the program, which was allowed to remain operational pending appeal, and families can keep their scholarships during the litigation. 1 2

Centre · 1Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman, who championed the 2023 expansion, said the ruling is out of step with precedent from the US Supreme Court and Ohio Supreme Court and that "the decision of one of 12 courts of appeal in Ohio will not affect that." 1 Right · 1Reason reports that families using EdChoice and the state's attorney general plan to appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court. Keith Neely of the Institute for Justice, which represents families in the case, argues the program funds families rather than a competing school system, and cites the 1999 Simmons-Harris v. Goff decision, in which the Ohio Supreme Court found school choice constitutional under the same clause. 2 Right · 1Vouchers Hurt Ohio argues the program drains funding from public schools; Neely counters that public school funding is separate from the scholarship program and warns the reasoning could threaten other programs such as the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship and the Cleveland Scholarship program. 2