Matt Meister is a history teacher at Cleveland Heights High School and political director for the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union.
Auditor of State Keith Faber wants to be our next attorney general.
He’s touting his experience to show he’s qualified to enforce Ohio’s laws and constitution, but there’s one action he took that he’s not publicizing: his bully tactics and veiled threats against public school districts, and the students we educate, for joining a lawsuit against Ohio’s private school voucher scheme.
That lawsuit resulted in a Oct. 15 ruling by the 10th District Court of Appeals affirming that Ohio’s EdChoice private-schoolvoucher program violates the Ohio Constitution.
I’ve taught history at Cleveland Heights High Schoolfor more than
20 years. I’ve seen the corrosive effects ofvouchersfirsthand, from the birth of EdChoice vouchers through its expansion into one of the largest universal voucher programs in the country.
In 2021 and 2023,Ohio’s state budgets relieved some financial stress on our district by funding vouchers through the state (rather than deductions from districts) and starting us on the path toward the Fair School Funding Plan,a bipartisan funding formula based on the real costs of educating students.
This enabled us to put off a levy and stretch our resources further. But we didn’t see long-term changes; that same state budget drastically expanded vouchers, destabilizing Ohio’s education future.
Now, the Fair School Funding Plan has been fully abandoned by legislators, and vouchers are provided for every student −regardless of income and their school district’s academic performance.
We are sendingmore than $1 billionannually to private schools that do not produce better academic outcomes and are exempt from accountability and transparency measures to which public schools are bound.
Locally, our district is reeling with $7 million less in state funding than we expected, necessitating drastic cuts and forcing us to once again ask voters to authorize a levy to protect our schools.
That’s why I’m proud that our district was one of the first to join a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of universal vouchers. It showed us that our school board had our students’ backs and stood firmly in support of the families we serve.\
Keith Faber the bully
In 2023, Auditor Keith Faber worked hand in hand with pro-voucher legislators like Matt Huffman, now the speaker of the Ohio House, to bully and threaten school districts that had joined the lawsuit.
Faber demanded that these school districts disclose how much public money each district was spending to contribute to the lawsuit. The timing of that demand – in the closing days of the state budget process – made it crystal clear Faber’s letter was a threat to cut funding for school districts that had the temerity to challenge Ohio’s vouchers.
This funding crisis has direct effects.
Class sizes have ballooned from around 20 to around 30. With a class that large, kids can hide in the crowd and fall through the cracks.
Instead of quick, in-line interventions to keep students on track, we end up needing to do heavy remediation work with our students afterward. We’ve also lost many of the electives that students loved, from anthropology to sociology to a literature course on satire. Our students suffer when they have fewer opportunities to become inspired in interesting courses.
We deserve elected officials who will support Ohio students and help provide high-quality, engaging local public schools. We don’t have time for politicians like Keith Faber, who would rather help their partisan colleagues privatize education and divide our communities.
Faber’s bully tactics didn’t work.When he sent the letter, 135 school districts had joined the lawsuit.
Now, more than 300 districts have joined. Let’s not give him a bigger platform where he can try again to push school districts around. Keith Faber is unfit to be our attorney general.
Matt Meister is a history teacher at Cleveland Heights High School and political director for the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Keith Faber threatened our schools. He shouldn't be attorney general | Opinion
