What exactly is “School Choice”? Our new paper explains.
by David Blatt, Ph.D. — Director of Research & Strategic Impact at Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice
What exactly do we mean when we say “school choice”? Although the term often generates bitter conflicts and debate, even the most vocal supporters and opponents of ‘school choice’ may be unaware of all the educational options available to K-12 students in Oklahoma.
A new issue brief from Advance Oklahoma’s Kids (AOK)- a statewide coalition of organizations committed to promoting equity in school funding and discipline - aims to help parents, policymakers, and advocates gain a clearer understanding of the school choice landscape in Oklahoma. The brief, titled School Choice: A Full Menu, is primarily informative and is not intended to make the case for or against the various forms of school choice. It is a primer on the public and private school options for Oklahoma families.
The vast majority of Oklahoma school age children - just over 700,000 in 2022-23 - attend public schools. As recently as a few decades ago, there were few if any alternatives to the local neighborhood school for most families. Now, someone looking for a public school alternative can likely choose between magnet schools, that are open to all students within the school district and have a specific focus or theme; charter schools, that are subject to fewer rules and restrictions than traditional public schools; online schools, run by either a charter school or traditional school district; or alternative schools, serving students at the highest risk of dropping out. If no school in their home district fits their needs, Oklahoma’s recently-enacted open transfer law allows them to freely send their child to another district, subject to the availability of space.
Alongside the expanded menu of public school options, Oklahoma now offers substantial taxpayer support for the 40,000 or so students who attend private schools, which are mostly church-affiliated. Until recently, private schools were entirely privately funded. Since 2010, however, and in response to intense lobbying from self-proclaimed school choice advocates, the Oklahoma Legislature has enacted and expanded three separate programs that use public dollars to subsidize the cost of private K-12 education. These programs are:
Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program: Provides scholarships to private schools of about $7,500 on average for students with disabilities and other eligible recipients who have previously attended public schools.The program covered over $10 million of private school costs in 2022-23.
Equal Opportunity Education Scholarships: A tax credit to individuals and businesses to provide scholarships to students in private schools with incomes up to about $165,000. The program was expanded in 2021 to provide up to $25 million in total tax credits for private school scholarships.
Parental Choice Tax Credit: The newest program, enacted in 2023, is a universal tax credit - meaning it is available to all families regardless of income - of between $5,000 to $7,500 per child to attend private schools. The total credit is capped at $150M in 2024 and is scheduled to increase to $250M by 2026. Up to $1,000 in parental choice tax credits are also available to cover educational expenses of homeschooled students.
These three programs are not mutually exclusive: a student attending religious or secular private schools may be eligible for a $5,000 - $7,500 private school tax credit, possibly in conjunction with a Lindsay Nicole Henry scholarship or a scholarship through the Equal Opportunity Scholarship program.
As much as Oklahoma legislators have been highly responsive to school choice advocates in enacting a series of ever-more expansive laws authorizing charter schools and open transfers and expanding private school tax credits and scholarships, the push for even more school choice shows no signs of abating. For the 2024 legislative session, well over a dozen new school choice bills have been introduced. These would, among other things, guarantee more students the right to transfer to a new school district (HB 3419 and SB 1554), expand eligibility for Lindsey Nicole Henry (LHN) scholarships to children of incarcerated parents (HB 3837), remove the requirement that LHN recipients have previously attended public school (HB 3968) and eliminate the annual fiscal cap on Parental Choice Tax Credits (HB 3911).
For a one page explainer of the School Choice landscape in Oklahoma, click here.
