Reporting Highlights

• The Ohio Model: Rarely seen letters show how the voucher movement started in the 1990s as a concealed effort to finance urban parochial schools and expanded to a much broader push.
• Helping the Affluent: An initiative promoted as a civil rights cause — helping poor kids — is increasingly funneling money to families who already easily afford private school tuition.
• The Voucher Deficit: Expanding programs threaten funding for public schools and put pressure on state budgets, as many religious-based schools enjoy new largesse.

On a Thursday morning last May, about a hundred people gathered in the atrium of the Ohio Capitol building to join in Christian worship. The “Prayer at the Statehouse” was organized by an advocacy group called the Center for Christian Virtue, whose growing influence was symbolized by its new headquarters, directly across from the capitol. It was also manifest in the officials who came to take part in the event: three state legislators and the ambitious lieutenant governor, Jon Husted.

After some prayer and singing, the center’s Christian Engagement Ambassador introduced Husted, asking him to “share with us about faith and intersecting […]