As part of a compromise plan involving vastly increased spending on public education, Oklahoma’s political leaders have enacted universal school choice.

House Bill 1934, which will be signed into law tomorrow by Gov. Kevin Stitt, creates a refundable income-tax credit for parents who incur private-school tuition expenses or homeschool expenses.¹ Student eligibility is universal, meaning it extends to any Oklahoma resident who is “eligible to enroll in a public school in this state.” Oklahoma is the eighth state to enact universal or near-universal publicly funded school choice in the last two years.²

If this school-choice framework can be “preserved and deepened,” says longtime Oklahoma City University law professor Andrew Spiropoulos, it represents “one of the most significant social policy achievements in [Oklahoma] history.”

Success has a thousand fathers, of course, and each one deserves great credit for this policy victory. But this particular success also has one proud grandfather, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

OCPA, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, has long made the case for educational freedom. Regardless of the mechanism—we’ve argued for vouchers, tax credits, and education savings accounts—the goal has remained the same: Let’s empower all parents to choose the best educational options for their children.

Alas, for many years, enacting school choice was not within the Overton Window of political possibility. Not even close. Think back to OCPA’s early years and try to imagine Senate leader Stratton Taylor and House Speaker Glen Johnson sending a private-school choice bill to Gov. David Walters.

Nevertheless, our fledgling think tank persisted. Our friend Larry Reed, then-president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (and Joe Overton’s boss), even traveled from Michigan to Oklahoma to consult with our board and staff. We discussed how think tanks can shape public opinion and thus influence public policy.

Vouchers, Tax Credits, and Education Savings Accounts

Educational choice has long been one of our signature issues. (When Mid-Del superintendent Rick Cobb made reference to “school choice kingpin Brandon Dutcher,” I cheerfully added it to my bio.) Year after year—in innumerable articles, policy papers, media hits, presentations to civic groups, and more—OCPA trustees, staffers, and research fellows have argued for parental choice in education. A few examples will have to suffice.
 

• In a 1999 article, I pointed out that civil-rights leader Martin Luther King III supports tax-credit scholarships. In a faxed response (remember fax machines?) to questions I had submitted, King told me “we must increase equal access to private education.”

• “Panel to look at vouchers,” read the headline in The Daily Oklahoman on March 4, 2000. Regrettably, my fellow panelists and most of the audience members were unpersuaded by my arguments. It would be another 10 years and a thousand fathers before Oklahoma’s first voucher program, the Lindsey Nicole Henry (LNH) Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program, was created.

• In 2001, OCPA published “The Case for Choice in Schooling: Restoring Parental Control of Education.” The report called for vouchers and tax credits and its author testified at a legislative hearing at the Oklahoma state Capitol.

• In 2002, OCPA called for school-choice tax credits in our book Oklahoma Policy Blueprint, which was lauded by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman as “thorough, well-informed, and highly sophisticated.” Also that year, OCPA published a report on tax-credit scholarships and worked with state Rep. Kevin Calvey to craft legislation. The bill even got a hearing in the House Revenue and Taxation Committee but did not advance. It would be another nine years and a thousand fathers before the Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship program was created. OCPA then proceeded to midwife a scholarship fund—Michael Carnuccio, Dave Bond, and I signed the incorporation papers—and today the Opportunity Scholarship Fund is the state’s largest organization of its kind.

• Writing in The Sunday Oklahoman in 2006, I noted that policymakers in other states had wisely struck compromises—more public-school spending in exchange for more school choice—and suggested “the time has come for that sort of compromise here in Oklahoma.” Specifically, I recommended that private-school and homeschool parents receive a tax credit for educational expenses. In an article the following year, I said “a tax credit for this purpose should be refundable to those parents without the income to claim the full credit.”

• In 2009 we launched the Oklahoma School Choice Coalition, with OCPA trustee Bill Price serving as chairman. We’ve held more than 150 coalition meetings.

• In 2011 in The Oklahoman, I promoted the idea of an “education savings account” (ESA), the new kid on the school-choice block. We’ve championed the idea ever since. Proposed legislation in 2023 would have created an ESA worth a minimum of $3,850 per student.

• In 2014 in The Oklahoman, I touted Alabama’s refundable school-choice tax credit and said Oklahoma lawmakers should likewise provide one.

• For Teacher Appreciation Week in 2015, I suggested in the Tulsa World that Oklahoma’s political leaders should appreciate parents who teach their own children at home. Also that year I proposed a nonrefundable tax credit for homeschoolers and worked with national and state homeschool groups to craft legislation.³

• In 2019, my colleague Trent England and I again collaborated with homeschoolers, ordering in some Chick-fil-A (of course) and sitting around an OCPA conference table working to craft nonrefundable-tax-credit legislation. The bill even cleared a House committee that year.

• In 2020, writing in The Journal Record, OCPA president Jonathan Small called on state lawmakers to provide “a significant refundable tax credit to families for education expenses, helping parents pay for greater opportunities for their children.” Three years later—and fully 16 years after OCPA first called for a refundable school-choice tax credit—the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Program is now a reality.

‘Vouchers in Disguise’

Some Oklahomans have asked, is this new school-choice program a tax credit or is it a government subsidy?

In one sense, it doesn’t matter what you call it—as you can see, OCPA favors all of the above—but in truth a refundable tax credit is a hybrid of education tax credits and vouchers. “The primary legal distinction between tax credits and vouchers is that vouchers are government funds and tax credits are a taxpayer’s own money,” Adam B. Schaeffer of the Cato Institute once explained. “When a tax credit is made refundable, this distinction is eliminated.” That’s because parents receive a check (or a direct deposit) from the government when the tax-credit amount exceeds their tax bill.

“While the tax credits themselves do not constitute public funds,” adds Heritage Foundation scholar Jason Bedrick, “the ‘refundable’ credits are a public subsidy.” Indeed, it appears these public subsidies may be given to parents in up-front installment payments. As Bloomberg journalist Steven Dennis has noted, “Prefunded refundable tax credit is a euphemism for voucher.” Many on the left⁴ and right⁵ have made similar observations.

Thus I had to agree when one Capitol insider wryly told me, “Our voucher identifies as a tax credit.” Considering that it was educators’ woke insanity that did so much to help move the Overton Window on school choice, the quip is perfect.

‘Funding Students, Not Systems’

In sum, Oklahoma’s political leaders, in a compromise plan that includes hefty spending hikes for public schools, have enacted universal school choice. Is there more work to be done? Yes. Eliminate the cap on the total amount of tax credits, for starters.⁶ But that’s a project for another day. Today we give thanks that, as Gov. Stitt put it, “we are building a foundation for funding students, not systems, in the state of Oklahoma.”

And to think just a few short months ago Oklahoma parents were hoping for a program in which the government would deposit money into their education savings accounts. Instead, it turns out the government will in effect deposit money into their checking accounts. Parents were hoping for a per-child amount of at least $3,850; instead, it will be up to $7,500.

Understandably, many school-choice opponents are bewildered. “We don’t see the House Republicans’ education plan as a compromise,” the Stillwater News Press observed when the first round of legislation advanced in February. “It’s more like simply caving in to the whims of the wealthy school choice lobby.”

I am reminded of Harold Price, a successful businessman in my hometown of Bartlesville who asked the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a three-story headquarters building for his pipeline company. The headstrong Wright agreed to do it but suggested a 10-story tower instead. In the end, Price recalled, “we finally compromised on 19 floors.”

That’s the kind of compromise I can get behind. Universal school choice in Oklahoma. My, how the Overton Window has moved.