Democratic Ohio appeals court again voids statewide EdChoice vouchers

An all-Democratic Ohio appeals court again voided statewide EdChoice school vouchers, a decision Attorney General Andy Wilson will take to the Republican Supreme Court.

The 10th District Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 Thursday that Ohio’s EdChoice and EdChoice Expansion programs violate the state constitution, upholding a 2025 lower-court decision that sided with public schools challenging the aid. The Center Square reported the panel stayed its own opinion, so the vouchers keep running while the state appeals.

Attorney General Andy Wilson said families using the scholarships should see no immediate change. He is taking the case to the Republican-majority Ohio Supreme Court, arguing the legislature has the power to help parents pay for the schools they choose.

The fight is no longer a narrow pilot. It is a statewide program that moved large sums of taxpayer money toward private and religious options, and two courts staffed by Democrats have now tried to shut that door.

Appeals judges say vouchers break Ohio’s school mandate

The appeals court held that the programs fail the Ohio Constitution’s demand for a “thorough and efficient system of schools.” The judges also said the constitution bars religious organizations from controlling public school funds.

In the court’s view, the vouchers build a competing private-school system that draws money away from public schools and operates with less state oversight. The panel rejected the state’s claim that the aid simply supports parents. Private schools, the judges noted, can still refuse students.

That reading treats parent choice as a threat to the public system rather than a safety valve for families stuck in schools that do not work for their children. It also hands public-school plaintiffs a constitutional shield against competition.

Two hundred districts drove the original challenge

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page set the stage in 2025 with a 42-page ruling for the public-school side. She held that the state could not fund private schools at the expense of public ones.

The Washington Examiner reported that Page’s decision backed roughly 200 public school districts that sued after lawmakers expanded EdChoice so any Ohio family could use it. The state already planned to appeal then, which is why parents did not lose the money overnight.

Thursday’s 3-0 affirmance locks in that trial-court theory at the intermediate level. Every seat on the eight-member 10th District Court of Appeals is held by a Democrat.

Parents who have spent years fighting district bureaucracies know this pattern. Federal pressure on mothers and fathers at school board meetings, detailed in a Justice Department report on Biden-era tactics, showed how quickly institutions move when families demand real options.

Wilson defends family choice and legislative power

Wilson drew a bright line between funding students and harming district schools. He said the current system does not injure public education and that many public schools already do strong work.

He put the core claim in plain terms:

"I believe that parents should have the option to send their kids to the school of their choice."

Wilson added that if lawmakers want to help parents fund that decision, the General Assembly has the authority to do it. He also said spending more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds on the voucher program does not hurt public schools.

His further point was direct:

"There are many great public schools across the state that are doing a wonderful job educating students. This is about a family’s choice on how they want to educate their kids."

That frames the dollars as following the child. The courts framed them as a raid on a protected public monopoly. Voters who watched culture-war races, including coverage of how Trump backed Darline Graham in South Carolina, have seen the same split: parents wanting exit rights, and institutions insisting exit itself is the problem.

Senate Democrats cheer the constitutional block

Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio of Lakewood praised both rulings and cast the vouchers as an attack on the state’s duty to public schools.

Antonio said:

"We are pleased to see that not one, but two courts have now found that EdChoice vouchers undermine the state’s constitutional responsibility to maintain a strong system of public schools."

She went further on accountability and religious schools:

"The Republican supermajority has continually expanded vouchers to private and religious schools that are allowed to remain unaccountable without the same transparency required of our public schools. This comes at the expense of our public schools, which are rigorously regulated and mandated to educate every student regardless of their income, ability or background."

Her statement treats private and religious options as less legitimate because they are not wrapped in the same regulations. It also assumes public systems automatically serve every child well because they are required to enroll them. Families using EdChoice have been voting with their feet against that assumption.

Left-wing intolerance for dissent shows up far beyond school finance. Comedian Bill Maher’s critique of that reflex, in a piece on a Massachusetts lesbian bar’s mask backlash, tracked the same instinct: lock in the approved model, then brand exit as betrayal.

Programs continue under the court’s stay

Because the appeals court stayed its opinion, EdChoice and EdChoice Expansion remain in force during the Supreme Court fight. Wilson’s office is using that window to keep aid flowing and to argue that a Republican-majority high court should restore the legislature’s room to design choice programs.

The practical stakes are simple. Parents already relying on the scholarships keep them for now. Districts that sued keep their constitutional theory alive. Lawmakers who built the expansion watch two Democratic courts tell them taxpayer-funded choice is out of bounds unless it props up the existing public structure.

Personnel fights in Washington often mirror these state-level clashes over who controls the message and the machinery. The same partisan tension runs through coverage of how Trump tapped Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary after a prior exit, another reminder that institutions and opposing parties rarely surrender narrative ground willingly.

What the next court will have to decide

The Ohio Supreme Court will face the clean legal question the lower courts already answered against choice: Does a voucher that lets a parent pick a private or religious school violate the state’s duty to maintain public schools, and does it hand forbidden control of public money to religious groups?

Wilson’s answer is that the money serves families, that public schools are not harmed, and that the General Assembly may fund the option. Antonio’s answer is that the Republican expansion built an unaccountable rival system and drained resources from regulated public schools that must take every child.

The appeals court adopted the second view in a unanimous decision from an entirely Democratic bench. The stay keeps the program alive. The Supreme Court filing will test whether parent-directed aid can survive under Ohio’s constitution when public-school plaintiffs and allied officeholders call it a threat.

School choice only becomes “unconstitutional” when courts decide parents are the problem. Ohio families still waiting on the high court should not have to apologize for wanting a door out.