Swearingen's Statement on Ohio House Passage of Education Reform

State Rep. D.J. Swearingen (R-Huron) has released this statement after the Ohio House overwhelmingly voted to pass Senate Bill 89, which creates the Buckeye Opportunity Scholarship:

“Today was a historic day for our state, as the House took the path to truly implement education reform for our students and families. After we extended the deadline for voucher applications last week, we utilized that time to come up with this solution that will give students educational opportunity and choice as well as begin the needed process of reforming testing mandates and the school report card system.

The Buckeye Opportunity Scholarship freezes the school-performance funding model and implements voucher funding solely on a students' family income. The poverty thresholds for receiving educational vouchers are raised from 200 to 250 percent, and pro-rated scholarships will be given to families above 250 percent up to 300 percent of poverty. It also provides that the new voucher program will be directly funded by the state, rather than the current performance-based system which reduces state funding to local public schools.

Two other important parts of this reform is that, one, those receiving the performance-based EdChoice vouchers currently will still be eligible to receive them with the Buckeye Opportunity Scholarship. The second component is that the legislation sets up a new committee for long-term reform to review testing mandates and fix Ohio’s flawed school report card accountability system.  I hope that the long-term reform will provide common sense accountability standards for schools and will also support and incentivize schools in offering a wide variety of skills-based education, such as training in the trades and other professions that will lead to a successful career for students immediately following graduation from high school.

All in all, I believe the House and all my colleagues made great strides in providing the Senate with a bipartisan bill that provides meaningful education reform that further helps and assists our students, families, and local schools so that every child can achieve their full potential.”