Legislation designed to cripple Oklahoma’s popular school-choice program by discouraging private schools from participating has been rejected by members of a state Senate committee.

Senate Bill 1391, by state Sen. Darcy Jech, would have effectively forced private schools to adopt public-school curricula by mandating that private schools administer state tests based on public-school curricula if they serve students who benefit from the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit (PCTC) program.

“Under this bill, private schools that are accepting the PCTC credits will administer the same statewide assessment tests as are required of all public schools,” said Jech, R-Kingfisher.

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. As with the public-school system, all Oklahomans can participate in the tax-credit program. However, unlike the public-school system, the greatest financial benefit is provided to families with the smallest incomes.

The program has proven very popular and has allowed the families of thousands of children, including those from low-income and middle-class families, to shift from the public school system to private schools.

However, because state testing is tied to the curriculum used in public schools, SB 1391’s mandate for private schools to administer state tests would effectively force those schools to adopt a public-school curriculum—even though many families opt to leave Oklahoma’s public schools due to poor academic outcomes.

If private schools are forced to choose between maintaining high academic standards and serving children in the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program, many are expected to opt out of the tax-credit program, based on the impact of similar regulations imposed on a Louisiana school-choice program.

Enacted in 2008, the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) provided private-school vouchers to low-income students assigned to public schools that had received a “C” or below on the state’s school rating system. Participating private schools were required to submit to state tests. The results of the testing mandate were decidedly negative for students.

Writing in 2019, Jude Schwalbach, who was then a research associate and project coordinator in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, noted, “Many Louisiana private schools knew that participating in the program could have meant sacrificing their distinctive school cultures and curricula—making them no different than their public school counterparts—and negating the ‘choice’ in school choice. Consequently, only one-third of Louisiana’s private schools chose to participate in the program.”

Schwalbach noted the testing mandate likely dissuaded “the best private schools from participating” in the Louisiana program.

Writing in 2016, Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, similarly noted, “The LSP’s high level of private-school regulation appears to have driven away better schools while attracting primarily lower-performing schools with declining enrollments that were desperate for more funding.”

In 2019, researchers found that mandating state standardized testing reduced the likelihood that private school leaders would be certain to participate in a school-choice program by 29 percent.

Several senators noted that if private schools complied with the legislation, those schools would likely become little more than copies of Oklahoma’s public schools, which have produced some of the nation’s worst academic outcomes.

State Sen. Christi Gillespie, R-Broken Arrow, noted she volunteered in her local public school district for 14 years.

“What I saw and what I heard consistently was the distaste and the dislike by all to teaching to the test, standardized testing,” Gillespie said.

Others echoed that view.

“It would be a total ending of private-school curriculum to have them suddenly taking state tests,” said state Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville.

She warned the legislation “would upend quite a bit of private education if it were implemented.

State Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, a former public-school teacher and coach, noted the concern “that these private schools would have to alter curriculum now in order to cater to this type of testing,” and pointed out that some “parents have pulled kids out of public schools” because of the “curriculum that guides to a test.”

“Even in the public-school system at this point, we are questioning standardized testing,” said Sacchieri, R-Blanchard.

State Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, also noted concerns about forcing private schools to teach to state tests.

“This avenue will actually create no difference or very little difference between our private-school goals and results and our public-school goals and results,” Deevers said. “And I think it strikes at the heart of educational freedom in Oklahoma.”

Notably, many Oklahoma private schools far outperform the state’s public schools based on measurements such as ACT results.

In 2025, Oklahoma students achieved an average composite score of 17.5 on the ACT test, well below the national average of 19.4. A 36 is a perfect score on the ACT.

Even when comparing Oklahoma only to the 14 other states where at least 90 percent of students take the ACT, Oklahoma still ranks at the very bottom, with only one state performing worse.

In contrast, the average ACT score of Oklahoma’s private-school students is substantially higher, based on publicly available information.

According to a Private School Review, the average ACT in Oklahoma private schools is 24, based on a review of 25 private high schools in the state.

In some cases, Oklahoma private-school students have dramatically outperformed their public-school peers despite their private school having substantially less money per student than Oklahoma’s public schools.

According to recently published data, Oklahoma public schools had per-pupil revenue of nearly $15,000 per student during the 2024-2025 school year, yet achieved an average ACT score of only 17.5.

In contrast, students at William Bradford Christian School in Pryor achieved an average ACT score of 24. Tuition at the school is just under $5,000 per student.

Students at Claremore Christian School achieved an average ACT of 23. The school charges tuition of $8,500 per student.

Students at Liberty Academy in Shawnee achieved an average ACT of 26. Liberty charges tuition of $5,500 per student.

Jech conceded he expects most students attending private school to perform well on academic tests, including children attending thanks to the tax-credit program.

One lawmaker opposed to SB 1391 also noted that state tests provide little real accountability in the public-school system.

“When schools fail testing, or their testing scores are very poor, it doesn’t seem like we do a lot right now,” Gillespie said. “So adding this to private schools goes against everything that we’re promoting with school choice.”

SB 1391 failed on a 5-7 vote of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.