Is the recent expansion of school choice in Ohio the culmination of a decades-long Catholic plot to gain control of the state’s school system? That was the Nast-y gist of a recent collaboration between the New Yorker and ProPublica. It painted EdChoice, a voucher program that Ohio recently enlarged, as a drain on the public fisc that serves only wealthy families.

Last week, Aaron Baer, president of the Ohio-based Center for Christian Virtue, took to our pages to respond to some of these scurrilous accusations. Baer, who was personally singled out by the article, corrected some of its misconceptions by noting that public school spending overall dwarfs the voucher money and exceeds it on a per-pupil basis, while many of the voucher scholarships go to students with special needs. He also emphasized the “consistent failures of our public education system,” especially during Covid, that helped motivate the voucher expansion.

There are many other positive attributes to EdChoice, as well as many misconceptions about what it does. “Thanks to the expansion scholarships, Ohio families do not have to choose between the educational option they desire for their children and struggling to make ends meet,” Brian Hickey, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said via email. This helps Catholic schools, where tuition is typically short of the actual cost of educating a child.

Other educational institutions, including Protestant and Jewish schools and those that serve special needs students, also benefit. The program is not some insidious papist subsidy; the church does not profit from schools, even with EdChoice in place. Nor is it the case that EdChoice benefits only wealthy white families: 31 percent of students at Ohio Catholic schools are ethnic or racial minorities.

Another way to tell that EdChoice is not some nefarious Catholic plot is that it is happening out in the open. Schools that receive scholarships must adhere “to robust operating standards, including teacher licensing, testing, and safety standards,” many of them the same as those for public schools, Hickey said. And if parents are unsatisfied, they are free to take their children — and their money — elsewhere. That is the point of school choice. Those who fail to understand this only reinforce the necessity of programs such as the one Ohio now offers.