An Ohio appellate court has ruled that the state’s “EdChoice” private school voucher program is unconstitutional. The program uses public taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition.

The program will still be able to exist, as the judges expect the state to appeal. An appeal would go to the 6-1 Republican-controlled Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio Republican state lawmakers made Ohio Supreme Court races overtly partisan by adding party labels in 2021.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

A panel of Democratic judges on the 10th District Court of Appeals in Franklin County unanimously sided with the more than 300 public school districts that sued, alleging that the EdChoice private school voucher program was violating the Ohio Constitution by funding a separate school system, one with a lack of oversight that isn’t available to rural students.

“EdChoice, as presently structured and funded, secures with taxpayer funds a competing system of uncommon schools that is not subject to the same obligations imposed on Ohio’s system of common schools,” Judge Dave Leland wrote.

It is also illegal for “drawing taxpayer money away from public schools” and “cherry-picking students from public schools, causing financial hardship,” the ruling states.

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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.