Public Schools Build Connections in Rural Communities. Vouchers Tear Them Down.

For example, in Perry County, Ohio, educators and administrators in New Lexington Schools are investing in career education that gives middle and high school students firsthand experience with jobs in health care, child care and the building trades—career pathways are in high demand across the state. More importantly though, in a rural area like New Lexington where there is a shortage of child care workers, electricians, carpenters and other skilled workers, students learning these job skills have the option of staying in the community they call home and starting a business that not only provides for them, but contributes to the economic growth of the community.

Big things are happening in this small school district: a daycare program trains high school students in early childhood education by allowing them to provide free child care to New Lexington Schools staff; a pre-apprenticeship program for juniors and seniors with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers guarantees apprenticeship placement for successful participants; a working farm owned by the district gives agriculture students hands-on experiences with crops and animals; a phlebotomy career program has plans to expand into other health care pathways; a commercial kitchen that serves the community teaches culinary skills and life lessons to students with multiple disabilities. Such opportunities aren’t just for older students. In one part of the program, third grade students learn how to weld and use those skills to complete art projects.

In New Lexington, teachers, business and community leaders and Casey Coffey, the visionary superintendent of the district, have worked together to integrate education with the needs of the community, making learning more relevant for students and providing them with multiple pathways for success after graduation.

Connecting students with the community is common in rural schools across Ohio. In Van Wert County, school counselor Kerry Koontz runs CEO (Career Education Opportunity), a program that allows juniors and seniors in Van Wert City Schools to explore careers with local businesses, nonprofits and government agencies. Many of these students return to Van Wert after college to work at the same place, helping reverse the rural “brain drain” that saps communities of homegrown talent.

In Buckeye Local Schools in Medina County, middle-school teacher Jody Keith runs the Confetti Project, a reading program that connects students with teachers, administrators, school board members and other community members. After the COVID years, when students started meeting again in person, Jody noticed the lack of social interaction in the school. She talked with her principal about starting a reading program that would build engagement and spread kindness “like confetti.” She invited her students to choose a book that resonated with them in some way, and then to invite an adult in the school system or community to read the same book and discuss it with them. Adults who have participated in this program often get teary-eyed talking about how they bonded with students. And Jody beams as she shares how students have interacted with each other and sharing their experiences.

In Cory-Rawson Local Schools in Hancock County, Wendi Davis and Emily Boerger, co-presidents of their OFT local union, started a food pantry and closet to help meet the needs of students and their families who can’t always afford regular meals or adequate clothing.

Our rural schools are the hubs of our small towns and rural areas. Investing in them brings people closer together and that proximity leads to innovative collaborations that benefit students, families and the whole community.

However, instead of investing in our students’ futures by fully and fairly funding the public schools that more than 90% of rural students attend, a national movement to privatize education through a voucher system is sweeping the nation, backed by Trump administration and anti-public education legislators in states across the country.

In Ohio, the overwhelming majority of private schools are in urban metro areas—many rural counties have zero or just one private school that accepts vouchers—but the costs of vouchers has a downward impact on public school funding. This results in a transfer of wealth from rural communities to a private school industry that barely serves rural areas. This disinvestment in public schools tears at the connective tissue of Ohio’s rural areas and small towns. When school districts are reduced to minimum funding levels, they don’t have the staff or resources to take on big projects that advance their students and communities.

For decades, voucher proponents couched their agenda as a pathway for low-income students to “escape their failing local school.” The first problem with this is that private schools do not perform better than these supposedly failing schools. Instead, studies in Ohio in 2016 and 2020 showed that public school students outperform their peers in private schools.

The second problem is that as vouchers expanded, they were used not by students leaving the public school system but rather students who were already private schools. For example, when Ohio went to universal vouchers in 2023, almost 69,000 new vouchers were given out; however, private school enrollment only grew by 3,700 students. The other 65,000-plus vouchers went to students who were already in private schools. Furthermore, the percentage of low-income students receiving these vouchers dropped from 67% to 17%.

That’s when the rhetoric changed from “helping disadvantaged students” to “school choice.” But in rural Ohio, as in other rural areas across the country, there is no real “choice” because rural areas don’t have the population density to support competing school systems. Likewise, many students with special needs, regardless of whether they live in a small town or big city, are shut out of private schools, which are allowed to deny admission to any student they don’t want. Our public schools are open to all children because all children deserve a quality education.

Yet more and more money is being drained from our rural public schools each year. Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s budget proposed that Ohio spend $2.5 billion over the next two years on private school vouchers, while cutting funding at 349 public (mostly rural) school districts. The Republican supermajority in the Ohio House, under the leadership of House Speaker Matt Huffman, is in the process of passing their budget proposal, which also underfunds public schools, completely eliminates a bipartisan funding formula and creates a brand new voucher that can be used at non-regulated private schools that were previously exempt from receiving vouchers.

At the same time, the Trump administration is hollowing out the Department of Education and creating extreme uncertainty about federal support for public schools, which primarily funds programs for students with disabilities and students in low-income school districts. Rural public schools rely on this funding stream and will need to make devastating cuts if that funding is interrupted.

This would hit hard in areas like Brown County in southern Ohio, where I grew up and began my career. Our school district, Georgetown Exempted Village Schools, is in Ohio House District 63 with 28 other school districts. Together these districts serve 14,875 students and they will lose a combined $8,327,571. In this same area however, only one voucher-eligible school exists, which serves 191 students. Instead of being able to expand education opportunities—like those that are happening in New Lexington, in Van Wert, in Cory-Rawson, and in districts throughout Ohio—our public schools are going to be forced to make tough decisions about what they can provide for students.

We can, and must, stand up for our rural public schools before it’s too late. Here are three things that you can do in your communities:

• Educate yourself and your neighbors about the damage that private school vouchers do to rural public schools. Some helpful resources include: the National Coalition for Public Education, EdTrust, Public Funds Public Schools and the Economic Policy Institute.
• Be vocal about your opposition to vouchers. Write editorials in your local newspaper. Share information on social media. Testify at statehouse meetings. Most importantly, contact your state and federal legislators. Let them know that you, as their constituent, expect them to protect your public school and to vote against any privatization efforts.
• Make public education a priority in future elections. Educate candidates on the impact that privatization has on rural schools. Many candidates erroneously believe that vouchers only impact urban and suburban areas. Let them know that rural schools are the most impacted because of their reliance on state funding. Refuse to vote for candidates who support privatization.

Our rural students, indeed all students, deserve good schools. We cannot stand by silently as voucher expansion is being pushed from a federal level to all areas of the country. Our rural voices are not only needed in this conversation, they are critical to turning back this privatization tide.

Melissa CropperMore by this author →

Melissa Cropper is the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, a state federation representing 20,000 members in 60 locals across the state, including public school educators and support staff, higher education faculty and support staff, and public employees. Before being elected state federation president in 2012, Cropper was a library media specialist in Georgetown, Ohio, and president of the Georgetown Federation of Teachers.