The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit (PCTC) program has helped tens of thousands of Oklahoma children attend private school, but since its creation critics have dismissed it as a benefit for “rich” families who could already afford private school.

Collin Griffin, father of a student now attending private school, said that argument requires its advocates to ignore the reality of numerous families like his own.

“The narrative that the PCTC is mostly for the wealthy is not only wrong,” Griffin said, “it is harmful.”

Griffin and his wife determined that the best education for their oldest daughter would be at Evergreen, an Acton Academy in Goldsby that focuses on the Socratic method, self-paced learning and hands-on application.

But paying tuition for the school was a significant challenge. The couple’s income is below $50,000 annually.

“Despite the generous scholarship Evergreen was able to offer us, we ended up going into debt anyway,” Griffin said. “However, it was worth it when we saw how Ellie was thriving in this new environment.”

When his other daughter reached school age, the family faced tough decisions.

“We knew that we wanted her to attend Evergreen as well, but there was no way we could afford to do that,” Griffin said.

That’s when the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit came into the picture.

“Thankfully, our Oklahoma legislators chose that moment to pass the parental-choice tax credit,” Griffin said. “We were overjoyed. Finally, it seemed like we had a path for our daughters to get the educations they deserved without driving our family deeper into debt.”

Griffin was among the parents, children and school officials who gathered at the Oklahoma Capitol on March 12 for a rally, sponsored by Americans For Prosperity, to thank policymakers for enacting the parental-choice tax credit.

And Griffin was not the only individual who noted the program’s beneficiaries are not living lives of idle wealth.

Ed Gray, father of a student now attending Trinity at Edgemere, is a single parent who worked as a federal law enforcement agent when he moved to Oklahoma three years ago.

His son was in sixth grade at that time and had been diagnosed with special needs.

When he found Trinity School at Edgemere in Oklahoma City, Gray said he “immediately knew it would be the perfect place for my son,” who was struggling and faced bullying at his last public school in Virginia.

But Trinity School wasn’t simply “perfect” for his son.

“I also knew it would be a bit of a financial burden,” Gray said.

Gray scrimped and saved to pay his son’s tuition and was able to cover the full cost for several years.

But when Gray was forced to retire due to age restrictions, his ability to pay tuition was put into question.

Like Griffin, the tax credit program came at an ideal moment. The credit, combined with his son’s eligibility for the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities (LNH) program for children with special needs, preserved his son’s access to a school where he was thriving.

“These benefits could not have been available to me at a better time,” Gray said. “I recently retired due to age requirements, and I could not have been able to afford the full tuition without significant hardship.”

Lara Schuler, senior director of Catholic Education for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, said there were 400 new students enrolled in Oklahoma Catholic schools this year, “many because of the parental choice tax credit.”

And that number is expected to climb as more families access the tax-credit program.

“We anticipate our enrollment to continue to grow and we’re still looking at different ways to manage that growth as we move forward,” Schuler said.

She said the tax credit program has been an “incredible gift” to families across Oklahoma who want their children to access private religious education but whose finances might not allow it.

“It helped those who could not afford tuition up until this point, for various reasons, or who had to make a difficult choice of moving their child and maybe could only afford the tuition of one student in their family and not all of their kiddos,” Schuler said. “And we had several situations like that.”

Austin Lash, a sixth-grade student now attending Trinity, also spoke at the rally to thank lawmakers for the program.

Lash has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), “which makes learning very, very hard sometimes.”

“One of the biggest changes for me happened in my very first semester at Trinity, in fifth grade,” Lash said. “With the help of my amazing reading specialist, I went from a third-grade reading level to a seventh-grade reading level. It was the first time I ever tested above grade level in reading, and for the first time in my life I love to read.”

Under the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program, all families can receive refundable tax credits of $5,000 to $7,500 per child to pay for private-school tuition, so long as the number of credits issued does not exceed $250 million.

The Oklahoma program has five income brackets with the largest credits going to families with the least income, and families with incomes below $150,000 are given priority.

In the first year of the school-choice tax-credit program, families sought credits for 38,756 children.

A report by the Oklahoma Tax Commission showed that the number of children from lower-income families who attended private school thanks to the program was 35 percent greater than the number of beneficiaries from the highest income bracket.

“The tax credit program is working,” said James Timberlake, executive director of the Council of Oklahoma Private Education. “Families who might not otherwise have been able to afford private education are able to send their child to a school that aligns with their values.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt also spoke at the rally, praising attendees for their willingness to stand up for children.

“I just want to thank all of you for fighting for education freedom,” Stitt said. “Oklahoma is leading the charge when it comes to school choice.”

At a press availability later the same day, Stitt said the class-warfare attacks on the school-choice program are “simply not true,” pointing to the attendees at the rally as proof.

“If you walked around outside there, regular working families, very middle class, the poor families, coming up to me, thanking me for this opportunity that they have to send their kids to the school of their choice,” Stitt said.

The main beneficiaries of the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit are not upper-income families, but all others, he noted.

“Rich people already had school choice,” Stitt said. “We just gave school choice to every single working family in Oklahoma.”

Michael Morrison, director of grassroots operations for Americans for Prosperity, said the rally provided parents an opportunity to not only express their appreciation to policymakers, but also stay engaged in the political process.

“Oklahoma parents deserve a strong voice in shaping education policy, ensuring their children have access to the best opportunities,” Morrison said. “By engaging in the legislative process, we can champion parental choice, transparency, and accountability to build a brighter future for every student.” 

Speakers at the rally said the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit is having a positive impact that will be felt for years.

“To families like mine, I want to say that the PCTC makes it possible to send your children to private school, even if you are in the lowest earnings bracket,” Griffin said. “The Parental Choice Tax Credit has been an extreme blessing for my family, and I honestly don’t know what our lives would look like without it. I want to say, ‘Thank you,’ from the bottom of my heart to the legislators and to Governor Stitt for empowering parents to make this possible. God bless you all.”

“Thank you to everyone who makes these scholarships and tax credits possible,” Lash said. “You haven’t just helped me succeed in school. You’ve helped me believe in myself, and that is a gift I will carry with me forever.”

NOTE: This story was updated following publication to include post-rally comments from Governor Kevin Stitt and a comment from Michael Morrison, director of grassroots operations for Americans for Prosperity.