Ohio state House Speaker Matt Huffman has urged public school administrators to be more flexible in their operations to improve standard and meet up with the needs and expectations of students and parents, just as he joined Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and other supporters of the state’s EdChoice Scholarship Program to defend school choice program.

“I think they should have more flexibility. I think they should be able to decide for themselves how they pay their teachers,” said Speaker Matt Huffman at a joint press conference.

“For example, we have a statute in the state of Ohio that says, when a teacher reaches a certain level of experience, then their pay automatically goes up. Now, that’s not affected by whether the teacher is doing great job. Maybe they should be getting paid a lot more.”

Speaker Matt Huffman said that “my job isn’t to say I want to support just this segment of government or society. The job of the Constitution given to the general Assembly is to provide an education to all the students in the state of Ohio.

“Our job is to help those kids. And if a better job is to have them in a small private school or a charter school, or some other function, that’s what I want to do.”

The Franklin County Court of Common Pleas recently ruled that Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship program is unconstitutional.

“The Educational Choice Scholarship Program, also known as the EdChoice Program, was enacted in 2005 and offers scholarships to K-12 students assigned to lower-performing public schools. In this “Traditional Program,” students receive scholarships valued at up to $6,166 at the K-8 level and up to $8,408 at the high school level. In addition, if the child’s family is at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, participating schools must accept the scholarship amount as payment in full for tuition,” according to Institute of Justice.

Also, Ohio State Attorney General Dave Yost said “EdChoice is the law of the land for the coming school year. Nothing that’s happened legally limits their options.”

Yost was referring to a June 24 decision by a Franklin County judge siding with the half-dozen urban school districts and several parents who early this year challenged the legality of EdChoice, which supplies vouchers to enable qualifying K-12 students to attend private schools.

The judge stayed the decision, allowing the program to continue uninterrupted during the appeals process. The state plans to file its appeal in Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals on Wednesday, Yost said.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, House Speaker Matt Huffman and other supporters of the state’s EdChoice Scholarship Program held a press conference to clarify the status of the program and reinforce their optimism that it will survive an ongoing court battle despite a recent trial court decision declaring it unconstitutional.

Yost and Huffman were joined by Rep. Jamie Callendar; Rabbi Eric “Yitz” Frank, president of School Choice Ohio; Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue; Tom Fisher, vice president and director of EdChoice Legal Advocates; and Monica Williams, an impacted mother.

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