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Thursday's ruling by the Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals that the state's EdChoice voucher program is unconstitutional will no doubt ruffle some feathers in Columbus.
Good.
Judge David Leland, who wrote the opinion for the three-judge panel, says the program violates the state constitution because it funds a separate school system, according to a report by The Blade, in Toledo. That violates the mandate for a SINGULAR public education system. It was the panel's opinion that the voucher program also lacks meaningful state oversight, is unavailable to many rural Ohioans (despite their tax dollars being used to fund it), and allows for discriminatory admission policies.
While Judges Kristin Boggs and Shawn Dingus concurred with the opinion, Leland also wrote that creating a competing private system for schools is draining much-needed money away from public schools while it also allows those voucher-driven schools to cherry-pick students, and may even harm public schools' ability to get funding through local levies.
No doubt there are plenty of public school officials in West Virginia taking note.
But the ruling does not yet mean any action will be taken.
In fact, lawmakers in Columbus may be tempted to ignore the ruling altogether, as enforcement of the judgment has been stayed in anticipation of an appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.
After all, Leland, Boggs and Dingus all won their elections as Democrats. There is a six-to-one Republican majority on the state supreme court.
But political affiliation does not change the fact that judges in Ohio swear to "support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Ohio, ... administer justice without respect to persons, and ... faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all of the duties incumbent upon" them.
Rather than just relax and assume the state supreme court will cover for them, lawmakers should read Leland's opinion as an opportunity to do some soul-searching about their responsibility to Ohio taxpayers and ALL Ohio students. It's possible EdChoice has developed into something they never intended, and now is their opportunity to fix it. If so, they must not hesitate to seize it.