Below are some of the top stories in education of 2025.
Property taxes
The most common conflict in the last year was over property taxes and the large jumps people have seen in their bills. Many local school districts rely heavily on that funding, with more than half of the district’s annual budget coming from local property taxes alone.
With rapidly rising costs for basics like electricity and gas, schools and property owners felt the pinch. The state passed House Bill 186, which caps school district tax increases to the rate of inflation. That change provides an estimated $1.7 billion in tax credit statewide to property owners over three years. The credits will appear on second half 2026 tax bills.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Dayton school busing
In April, a Dunbar High School student, Alfred Hale III, was shot and killed near the downtown Dayton RTA bus hub. His death set off a chain reaction, with state and local leaders calling for Dayton Public Schools to stop issuing RTA bus passes to high school students, as they had for the last three years, and on and off for decades before. The state ultimately prohibited students from using bus passes purchased by Dayton Public from transferring through the downtown bus hub, but a lawsuit from DPS’s Board of Education blocked the implementation of that law, allowing the district to buy bus passes again.
Department of Ed
At the federal level, President Donald Trump’s administration set a goal of dismantling the Department of Education, with much of the prior duties of the federal department distributed to other agencies and many former employees laid off. It’s still not entirely clear how the Department’s dismantling will impact local families, but advocates say it is harder now to stop discrimination against certain students. The federal government appears to have further plans to dismantle and hamper the department’s function. The federal government also required many schools to sign a letter saying they do not do DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programing, which Dayton Public did not sign.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Voucher debate
The debate over whether Ohio should be funding state vouchers wasn’t resolved in 2025. A Dayton Daily News investigation in July found private schools don’t always outperform public schools on state tests, especially when the private school is in a wealthier district. But private schools more often outperform public schools when the district is in a poorer area, like Dayton. A Franklin County judge ruled that EdChoice is unconstitutional in June, but the case has been appealed. The debate over vouchers and how they are impacting public schools is likely to continue into 2026.
University struggles
Overall, university enrollment was already falling pre-pandemic with a smaller number of students who were eligible or interested in college, but that number has continued to decline, leaving some universities in peril. Wittenberg University in Springfield was put on probation with its accreditor in November. University of Dayton announced more cuts in May. And higher education is not safe from the state regulations, either - Senate Bill 1 passed this year, which limited DEI at public universities and caused at least two local universities - Wright State University and Miami University - to close offices related to DEI.
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