OK: Vouchers For The Wealthy

Oklahoma voucherphiles pitched a tax credit scholarship program for years, with a variety of pretty promises.

In 2020, Senate President Pro Tempore tugged on heartstrings:

“Where there are kids that lack opportunity, my heart pains for them,” said Treat, R-Oklahoma City. “We need to make sure they are not forgotten.”

Expanding the program will get poor kids into religious schools, or help poor kids escape bullying.

Governor Kevin Stitt pushed in 2023, proclaiming "Now we're gonna put the parents back in charge." Also, competition will raise all boats. And poor kids will be rescued.

Yessiree-- the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program would help poor families get their kids into super duper private schools. "This is an every kid wins policy and funding plan," said House Speaker Charles McCall back in 2023, when the bill passed.

Just barely. A similar bill tanked in 2022, opposed by rural Republicans who didn't want to see their schools drained of funding, and they didn't want to see taxpayer money going to unaccountable private schools. So the tax credit version was born. The idea was that instead of draining the general fund, taxpayers could contribute to vouchers instead of paying their taxes (which would, you know, cut revenue for the general fund.)

Lawmakers were a bit upset by what turned out to be the mechanics of the tax credit. They expected that it would come in the form of a line on tax returns (like any other tax credit). But no. In what may be the laziest attempt to maintain the fiction that these vouchers aren't a way to send public tax dollars to private religious schools, the Oklahoma system sends the voucher money directly to the school--but in a check that is made out to the parents. The parents come in to the school to endorse the check.

This baloney allows the Oklahoma Tax Commission to say, with a straight face, “No checks were issued by the Oklahoma Tax Commission to private schools."

Said some legislators, "We would not have voted for this if we thought this was how it was going to work." It took station KFOR to find out this was what was happening.

Now the data shows there is yet another unfulfilled promise behind the vouchers. The OTC released details of who was receiving the voucher benefits.

30% of vouchers went to families making less than $75,000.

Slightly less went to families making between $75,000 and $150,000.

17% went to families making between $150,000 and $225,000.

And almost a quarter of the funds ($22.6 million) went to families making over $225,000 a year.

Oklahoma's median income is $60,000.

Governor Stitt told a press conference, "It's working like we wanted it."

State Rep. Melissa Provenzano said that the vouchers are going "overwhelmingly" to students already enrolled in private school.

None of this should be remotely surprising, as it is exactly how vouchers have played out in other states. No mention yet about the students who were rejected by private schools.

One thing sure to be a factor-- the voucher program immediately led to private schools hiking tuition prices. Ruby Topalian at The Oklahoman reported on the issue, offering as a specific example

The Parental Choice Tax Credit Program started in December, promising parents a tax credit of up to $3,750 per student for spring tuition. Global Harvest Christian School responded by raising its spring tuition to $3,500.

Janelle Stecklein of Oklahoma Voice had some harsh words for the supporters of the program.

There’s a terrible stench that smells a lot like bull excrement emanating from the halls of our state Capitol right now, and Republicans are hoping that Oklahomans plug their nose and pretend their highly touted voucher-like program doesn’t stink to high heaven.

Many are also likely hoping that their constituents will suffer from a convenient bout of amnesia when it comes to recalling the promises made — and not kept — in 2023 about their Parental Choice Tax Credit Act.

As it turns out, Oklahomans were sold a sham when legislators sought to convince us why our hard-earned tax dollars should be used to pay for children’s private school educations even while their local public schools continue to struggle financially and academically.

And more to the point

Legislators would have you forget that they want to use public money to continue to subsidize the costs of a small subset of rich children whose parents have fled the public school system that 700,000 children rely on. The exodus further exacerbates the gap between the haves and have nots.

To further rub salt in the wound, many private schools used the new “tax credit” to raise tuition. An Oklahoma Watch analysis found that about 12% of 171 participating private schools capped tuition rates near $7,500, the max a family can receive. Some schools raised tuition rates 100%.

At this point, there's no state legislator anywhere that has any excuse. All of these issues have well documented in each of the universal voucher states. Vouchers are an expensive entitlement for the wealthy that try to hide behind a fig leaf of helping a few select actual non-wealthy folks.

But then, Stitt doesn't seem inclined to learn much from others' experience. He's busy these days touting a "path to zero" plan for cutting all state income taxes, having apparently missed the lesson of Sam Brownback's disaster trashing of Kansas in what turned out to be the ultimate debunking of supply-side economics. Good luck, Oklahoma.