Members of a House budget subcommittee have voted to require that at least 60 percent of Oklahoma public-school funding go to classroom expenses.

The bill advanced over the objections of a school-board lobbyist organization that opposed the bill, complaining that school districts “could be required to increase teacher pay” if it becomes law.

House Bill 1280, by state Rep. Chad Caldwell, would require that at least 60 percent of a school district’s annual budget go to “instructional expenditures” starting in the 2025-2026 school year.

“We should prioritize our teachers and our students, and we should target our investments to those,” Caldwell said. “We spend a lot of time in this building talking about the ‘how much’ of the education-funding conversation. What I’m trying to bring into the conversation—and have for several years now—is we also have to have a conversation about where we’re spending our money and how we’re spending our money and how those investments are going to be made.”

Under the bill, schools that fail to spend 60 percent of funding on instructional costs for four years would be required to “increase compensation for all teachers in the school district.”

Caldwell said “one of the primary goals” of the bill is to increase teacher pay.

“I do believe as a direct result of this bill, our teachers are going to make more money in the majority of our schools,” Caldwell said.

Caldwell noted that, on average, Oklahoma schools spend 58 percent of funding on classroom instruction. He noted that average means many Oklahoma districts are already in compliance with the bill.

“There’s a decent amount that are at or above that threshold already,” Caldwell said.

However, he noted that more than 150 districts, out of more than 500 total, currently spend less than 50 percent of their revenue on classroom instruction.

“Quite frankly, I cannot think of a legitimate reason a district would need to spend less than half of their money on classroom expenditure where the majority of our instruction takes place,” Caldwell said.

One of Oklahoma’s largest school districts is among that group.

According to state data, the Oklahoma City school district has per-pupil funding well above the state average but still spends less than 48 percent on instruction. State data shows Oklahoma City’s per-pupil funding has increased by 63 percent since 2018.

Caldwell noted that even if schools achieve the 60-percent level, they will still spend less on instructional activities than their counterparts nationwide, saying the national average is 62 percent of school spending going to instructional costs.

Caldwell said 37 states spend a larger share of school dollars on classroom instruction than what occurs, on average, in Oklahoma public schools.

“We rank towards the bottom in the country as far as the percentage we spend in the classroom,” Caldwell said. “We’ve got school districts in the state that spend 65, 70 percent in the classroom, so we know it can be done.”

The Oklahoma State School Boards Association, a lobbyist group funded with schools’ tax dollars, opposed the bill, claiming the legislation “is an intrusion on local control and prevents school boards from allocating funds based on the needs of students.”

OSSBA argued that schools should not be required to boost teacher pay using existing financial resources and argued instead for additional funding increases.

Lawmakers on the committee received many emails from various school officials that were largely cut-and-pasted material from the OSSBA.

One lawmaker who voted against the bill appeared to echo the OSSBA’s talking points in committee.

“Roughly half of our schools would get hit by this bill and have to increase their salaries for their teachers,” said state Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber.

But state Rep. Chris Banning, a Bixby Republican who voted for the bill, suggested it is reasonable to question the spending decisions made by some school-district officials.

In recent years, Banning noted that the number of students in Oklahoma schools has increased 5 percent compared to a 23-percent increase in district administration and only a 2.5-percent increase in teachers. He said the number of principals has increased 18 percent.

Even as the OSSBA and its allies argued that Oklahomans should not expect money to go to the classroom, the group argued for spending increases for schools regardless of how the money is spent, claiming Oklahoma “is last in the region” for per-pupil spending.

“The best way to support Oklahoma students is to continue the progress of recent years by continuing to invest in public school students,” OSSBA stated in its legislative alert.

The OSSBA then linked to a graphic that purported to show that Oklahoma school funding lags behind surrounding states.

However, the figure cited in that graphic claims per-pupil funding is roughly $3,000 less per student than the actual figure reported by Oklahoma schools.

According to financial data reported by schools to the state’s Oklahoma Cost Accounting System (OCAS), Oklahoma public schools received $9,600,703,488 in new revenue in the 2023-2024 school year. Since student enrollment was 698,923 in the 2023-2024 school year, that comes out to an average of $13,736 per pupil.

That’s a 51 percent in per-pupil revenue since the 2017-2018 school year when Oklahoma public schools reported having $6,300,400,107 in new revenue and statewide enrollment of 694,816 for an average of $9,067 per student.

The $13,736 in per-pupil revenue reported by schools to OCAS exceeds the per-pupil funding in all surrounding states, based on the figures included in OSSBA’s graphic.

Oklahoma public schools’ per-pupil funding of $13,736 per student is also greater than the national average private school tuition, based on data compiled by Private School Review.

However, as per-pupil revenue has increased in Oklahoma public schools, academic outcomes have declined.

In 2024, Oklahoma high-school graduates had an average ACT composite score of 17.6 (out of a possible 36). That was substantially lower than the average composite score of 19.3 in 2018.

According to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests administered in Oklahoma and nationwide in 2024, Oklahoma fourth-and-eighth grade students' achievement in reading and math remains lower than it was prior to the COVID pandemic, and the results in Oklahoma public schools were among the nation’s worst.

Researchers say 10 points on a state’s NAEP scale score roughly equates to a year of learning. Oklahoma’s NAEP fourth grade reading score has declined nine points since 2019, and Oklahoma’s score on fourth-grade reading was lower than the average in all but three states.

HB 1280 passed the House Appropriations and Budget Education Subcommittee on a 6-4 vote.