IntroductionThe Ohio Voucher Program is a school voucher program in which students are selected through a lottery process by the Cleveland City School District. The program selects students based on financial need. These vouchers or scholarships allow parents the “choice” to use them in private secular or religious schools within the Cleveland district and all districts that have registered for the Ohio Vouchers program. Depending on each student's income level, a student may receive vouchers that cover 90% of tuition. But the overall limit a student can receive is $2,500. The Ohio Revised Code sets forth program guidelines in statute § 3313.974 through 3313.979. The Ohio Vouchers program was created to respond to the failure of Cleveland's public school system. Under this program, however, vouchers do not help students attend public school in the Cleveland School District. Surrounding school districts may accept the vouchers, but have not done so since the program began. This program is harming Cleveland's public school system by diverting money that should be intended to improve public schools, but instead goes to private schools that are largely religious schools. The program continues to harm not only the public school district but also the parents of students who seek to take advantage of it. Parents are left with no alternative but to choose a non-public school and even then a religiously private school. Of the nonpublic schools participating in Ohio's voucher program, 82 percent are religious schools. Nearly 88% to 96% of students who participated in the program were enrolled in or attending a religious school. So government funds that are canceled... middle of paper... are unconstitutional under Committee on Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 US 756 (1973) A key reference that is to be taken into account consideration in deciding whether the Establishment Clause violates the Ohio Voucher Program, then see Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 US 756 (1973). The courts struck down a New York program with the same idea as the Ohio Voucher program. The New York program helped low-income parents send their children to some K-12 schools that included private religious schools, with partial tuition reimbursement from the state. This mirrors the Ohio Vouchers program very closely because most of the schools that participated in the program were religious institutions. They also gave money to parents with the “choice” of sending it to schools.