On April 9, students from Shiloh Christian Academy in Newcastle visited the Oklahoma Capitol on a field trip that was also attended by many of their parents. While there, they witnessed a debate in the Oklahoma House of Representatives over the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program, which has made private school financially possible for many Shiloh families.

To their surprise, the Shiloh families found themselves indirectly attacked and dismissed as a band of wealthy elites by opponents of the school-choice program.

The gap between opponents’ rhetoric and reality was stunning.

“It was definitely shocking to hear somebody say something like that whenever, just kind of living your life, you’re thinking, ‘Well, I wish that was me,’” said Jordan Smith, a father from Tuttle who has a child attending Shiloh Christian Academy. “Everybody was kind of looking back and forth at each other like, ‘Man, that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve experienced.’”

“The things that were said were shocking, because you either know the information and you’re choosing to withhold a lot of it to get your point across, or you’re just not doing your due diligence at all, which would be a complete disservice to your constituents and to the entire state,” said Tera Painter, a Bridge Creek mother of three. “It was hard to sit there and hear and not be able to say anything.”

However, the Shiloh parents are not alone. For months, opponents of the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit have insisted, for all intents and purposes, that nearly all Oklahomans are “rich.” 

Critics have insisted that nearly all those benefiting from the school-choice program are wealthy, going so far as to claim, at least indirectly, that people with teacher-level incomes, children on food stamps, and even homeless children are “rich” and should be cut off from the program.

The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program provides refundable tax credits of $5,000 to $7,500 per child to cover the cost of private school tuition. The largest tax credits go to those with the lowest incomes, and families with incomes under $150,000 per year are prioritized.

Families earning up to $75,000 can receive a $7,500 per-child refundable tax credit; those earning $75,001 to $150,000 get a credit of $7,000 per child; families with income from $150,001 to $225,000 qualify for a $6,500 credit; those earning $225,001 to $250,000 receive a $6,000 credit; and those earning $250,001 and up qualify for a credit of $5,000 per child.

This school year, the families of 39,587 children used the Parental Choice Tax Credit program to send their children to a private school using $247.8 million in credits, according to the most recent report from the Oklahoma Tax Commission. Based on trends, demand is expected to exceed the $250 million supply during the 2026-2027 school year unless the cap is raised on the program.

House Bill 3705, which increases the amount of school-choice tax credits to $275 million, passed the House on a 70-19 vote on April 9 and now proceeds to the Oklahoma Senate. But the bill did not pass until opponents derided thousands of low-income Oklahomans, claiming those families are wealthy.

“A few years ago, we were told the reason for passing the private-school tax credits was to help low-income families be able to afford private school,” said state Rep. Mickey Dollens, D-Oklahoma City. “However, now we have the data showing that more than 90 percent of families using this credit already had their kids in private school.”

Many of the families that were in private school last year were there thanks to the tax credit program, but data was not collected at that time on the number of families switching from public to private school.

Yet school-choice opponents have routinely cited the 90-percent figure to suggest those families could easily pay for private education without the tax credit.

Among the 90 percent of kids who used the tax-credit program this year and were in private school last year are 2,690 students on welfare programs such as food stamps, 29 homeless students, and another 6,807 students from families with an income of $75,000 or less.

Painter’s children are among those in that bracket. She and her husband both work. Her husband, a firefighter, also takes on second jobs. The family’s income is under $75,000 per year.

Put simply, Painter said, “We are not rich.”

Painter said she and her husband agreed they wanted their children to go to private school even before they were born, and the couple worked hard to achieve that goal.

“We made the decision that we would sacrifice as much as we needed to in order to get them that education,” Painter said. “So the tax credit happening has just been a complete blessing to our family, because having three kids, I don’t know what sacrifices we would be needing to make.”

For some families, the reasons to shift to private school can be literal life-or-death decisions.

Smith has one child at Shiloh and two older children who have attended public school. The challenges encountered in the public-school system by one child led Smith to choose a private Christian school for his youngest child.

“One of my older students got involved in drugs in public school, and I was told by the principal that basically they can’t control the flow of drugs into the school with marijuana being essentially legalized here in Oklahoma, that they can’t even police it in school,” Smith said. “It’s taken a toll on his life and just our family in general. We did not want our younger kid to experience that, and Shiloh’s a school where we feel pretty confident that they can monitor things a little bit better than the public school can.”

That hasn’t deterred school-choice opponents, and some have gone even further than Dollens.

During debate on HB 3705, state Rep. Melissa Provenzano, D-Tulsa, claimed only 0.085 percent of students using the tax-credit program “qualify as low income.”

Provenzano’s claim appears to count as “low income” only a share of the 345 students who use the school-choice program and are either homeless or classified as financially disadvantaged, or she made a mathematical error and intended to count only those who qualify for welfare programs. Implicitly, that suggests she views anyone not on welfare as financially well-to-do, including 7,762 children from families with incomes of less than $75,000.

During the House debate on HB 3705, Provenzano also suggested family income of more than $75,000 is effectively high-income, citing that as a reason to oppose the program.

“Seventy-one percent of everyone who gets this tax credit makes over $75,000 a year or more,” Provenzano said.

That was similar to comments made in February by Senate Democratic Leader Julia Kirt of Oklahoma City, who said, “The only data we’ve gotten shows us that two-thirds of the families accessing that money are way above average for Oklahoma wages. So when you talk about two-thirds of the folks accessing the tax credit are wealthier families, is that serving the purpose?”

Based on Oklahoma Tax Commission data, the two-thirds figure cited by Kirt as representing “wealthier” families appears to include every family earning more than $75,000.

But Census data shows that income over $75,000 is not, in fact, “way above average” for Oklahoma parents with children. Many households have dual income with both mother and father working.

According to Census data, the median income of married-couple families in Oklahoma is $100,115. That means the majority of married couples with children in Oklahoma have income exceeding the school-choice program’s lowest-income bracket (the $7,500 per child bracket).

The Census also reports that most households with children younger than 18 are married-couple households. There are 291,095 married-couple households in Oklahoma with children younger than 18, and another 37,536 cohabitating households with children younger than 18. There are 24,181 single-dad households with kids younger than 18 and 84,330 single-mom households with kids younger than 18.

Of 487,823 Oklahoma households with children younger than 18, Census data shows that nearly 60 percent are headed by married couples.

By claiming that joint income of more than $75,000 makes one “wealthier,” school-choice critics have effectively argued that people with income comparable to that of the average public-school teacher are rich.

According to the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, average teacher pay in Oklahoma was $61,686 in the 2024-2025 school year, meaning a husband and wife who both work as public-school teachers at the average salary would have household income of more than $123,000, well above the lowest-tier of the Parental Choice Tax Credit program for parents with incomes of $75,000 or less.

State Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, noted the irony of school-choice critics attacking teacher-level pay during debate on HB 3705, saying he “didn’t think I’d hear today” that teachers “are rich, but that’s the information we were just given by some of the members of the minority party because they wouldn’t be in the bottom income category.”

“Make sure when you’re talking to your public-school teachers, let them know that they are in fact ‘wealthy,’” Caldwell said. “I’m going to guess that they are going to be somewhat surprised.”

About 56 percent of children using the program this year are from low-income or middle-class families with incomes below $150,000. The Oklahoma Tax Commission report shows 76 percent of recipients are from families with incomes below the top bracket.

Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, noted that private school was out of reach for many lower-income families prior to the creation of the Parental Choice Tax Credit program, but many of those families are beginning to access the private-school system thanks to the program.

He said the share of children from lower-income and middle-class families is likely to steadily rise as more families become aware of the program and utilize it.

“For years and years, the lower incomes didn’t even qualify, didn’t even have the opportunity to go to private school if they chose to do so,” Paxton said. “They are now finding their way in that system, and we’re trying to make sure the money is there, available for them to do that.”

Oklahoma Tax Commission data indicate that the shift is underway. Among the families of the thousands of children who used the program to shift from public to private schools for the first time this year, the Oklahoma Tax Commission reports that 72 percent are from families with incomes of $150,000 or less.

Painter knows several of those families personally.

“This has helped so many of my friends,” Painter said. “I have had a lot that are coming from public school. It just makes sense.”

For most of those friends, private school is unaffordable without the tax credit, she said.

“Just financially, they would not have been able to do it,” Painter said. “But with the tax credit, yes, it’s opened those doors for them.”