Why the Fair School Funding plan?

We support a state school funding formula that is adequate, equitable, and reliable.

The Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Ohio state budget fully funded the second step in the planned six-year phase-in of the Fair School Funding Plan, developed over three years by an expert panel to remedy our state’s primary structural system for funding public education in the 610 public school districts that serve over 1.6 million of our children and adolescents.  Sadly, two years ago, the legislature did not commit to the full adoption of the new public school funding formula by enacting a stand alone bill. Instead, legislators said they would enact a three-step phase-in over the course of three biennial budgets, a promise easily broken by subsequent legislatures including, apparently, today’s Ohio Senate.  A top priority in 2023, 2024, and 2025 will be to ensure that, two years from now, the Ohio Legislature fully funds the third phase of the Fair School Funding Plan in the 2026-2027 state budget .

The Fair School Funding Plan is designed to measure the real costs of the services for Ohio’s over 1.6 million public school students—including the cost of reasonable class size for students from Kindergarten through twelfth grade and the investment required for a full curriculum along with programs for children with special needs, English language learners, and students living in concentrated poverty. The Fair School Funding Plan is also designed to determine what is a fair local and state share for each of the state’s 610 school districts. The formula considers the fiscal capacity of each school district—its property tax base and the ability of the school district’s residents (according to their income) to pass local property tax levies.