Education

‘Life-changing’: Oklahoma working-class families shift to private schools

January 12, 2026

Ray Carter

According to the latest report from the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the families of 3,804 children have used the Oklahoma Parental Tax Credit program to shift their children from public to private school during the ongoing 2025-2026 school year.

The overwhelming majority of those students come from low-income and middle-class families.

Kaitlin Peters, a Tulsa-area mother of three children (ages eight, seven, and six), credits the program with making it possible to enroll her children in private school even though she and her husband live on a single income.

“Just the fact that we don’t make a lot of money and they’re able to go to such a nice school has been the biggest blessing,” Peters said. “I could cry talking about it. Our kids have been so much happier. It’s one of those things where it’s like it’s too good to be true. It’s been a huge blessing to us.”

The couple originally enrolled their children in a local public school but found the environment detrimental.

“Our kids were coming home with inappropriate drawings at that age,” Peters said. “It really scared us as a family because we were like, ‘What is going on and where are they learning this?’”

A relative suggested a local private school, but Peters thought it was out of reach. Even though tuition was about $7,000 per child, lower than tuition at many private schools and well below the per-pupil revenue provided to public schools, paying for all three children would have consumed more than four months of the family’s total annual take-home pay.

“There was just no way we would ever be able to do that,” Peters said.

But officials at the school directed Peters to the tax-credit program, and today all three children are enrolled.

Rachel Cooper, a mother raising five children following a divorce, has similarly been able to enroll four of her children in private school thanks to the Parental Choice Tax Credit program.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do that without the parental choice (program),” Cooper said. “That is what gave us the opportunity for me to be able to have the freedom to apply and get them registered there.”

One of Cooper’s children is enrolled in public school and has been well served there, she said. But for the remainder of her children, private school has been the better option.

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, with the largest credits going to those with the lowest income.

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.

Of the 3,804 children using the school-choice program to attend private school for the first time this year, 72 percent are from families with adjusted gross income of $150,000 or less, and 44.5 percent are from families with income of $75,000 or less.

Those figures are generally aligned with the income breakdown of all married-couple families in Oklahoma, according to Census data, which shows that 36 percent of married-couple households in Oklahoma have an income of $75,000 or less, while another 41.3 percent have an income between $75,000 and $150,000.

Among married-couple families, the median household income in Oklahoma is $95,573, meaning half of Oklahoma families earn more than that amount.

Census survey data from 2023 show that 66 percent of Oklahoma children live in married-couple households, while another 9 percent live in households with two adults present. The remainder live in single-parent households.

Since the school-choice program launched in January 2024, enrollment at Owasso Preparatory Academy has increased by 50.4 percent.

In the 2023-2024 school year, for which the tax credit was available only in the second half of the school year, there were 303 students enrolled at Owasso Preparatory Academy. In the 2024-2025 school year, Owasso Preparatory Academy had 370 students. This year, enrollment surged to 456 students.

Tiffany Rinas, school superintendent for Owasso Preparatory Academy, said 60 percent of students at the academy come from families with incomes below $150,000.

“We’ve seen not only an increase in enrollment, but what we’ve seen is primarily that enrollment has come from families who have told us that without the tax credit, there’s no way that they would have been able to afford to go to our school,” Rinas said.

St. Paul’s Community School in south Oklahoma City, which provides a classical education to mostly lower-income students in the area, has also benefited.

Tuition rates at St. Paul’s are determined on a sliding scale tied to income levels, ranging between $25 and $775 per month, with the lowest rate charged to families with the least income. The school fundraises to provide scholarships to make up the difference.

Morgan Shillow, head of school at St. Paul’s Community School in south Oklahoma City, said the school-choice program is making it possible for the school to serve more low-income families.

“For our school, this tax credit has definitely made it more sustainable and possible as we’ve grown,” Shillow said. “The fundraising goals that we had were beginning to get pretty hefty and almost unreachable.”

Shillow said the average family income for St. Paul’s students is $58,000, and 63 percent of students come from families with incomes that qualify them for free- and reduced-price lunches. The school currently has 142 students enrolled from pre-K to seventh grade.

She said the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program makes it possible for other schools to adopt a model like St. Paul’s that focuses on lower-income families.

“It’s been a huge blessing to St. Paul’s,” Shillow said, “and I hope that will start a trend that more schools like St. Paul’s will open.”

Current Program Cap May Impede Growth

However, far fewer families may be able to use the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program to shift children from public school to private school next year—because the program is capped at $250 million in credits per year.

According to the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the program has issued $249,087,024 in school-choice tax credits so far this year. An increase of as few as 122 more children next year could bust the cap, meaning additional applicants will be turned down.

Some state officials want to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“We knew the program would be successful and that at some point we would need to address expanding the availability to serve as many families as possible,” said state Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville. “And we are now at that point.”

Under Senate Bill 1389, by Daniels, the cap on the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program would increase by 20 percent whenever 90 percent of credits are claimed in a given year. Daniels said that her plan allows for responsible budget planning while addressing growing demand.

“It’s the fiscally conservative and responsible way to grow an outstandingly successful program that is helping so many families identify and get their students to a school that best suits their needs,” Daniels said.

A spokesman for Gov. Kevin Stitt recently told Oklahoma Voice that the governor plans to call for the complete elimination of the cap during the 2026 legislative session, which begins in February.

A recent poll, commissioned by the organization “yes. every kid. foundation,” found that 67 percent of likely Oklahoma Republican primary voters view the tax-credit program favorably and 64 percent support removing the cap. Furthermore, 53 percent of K-12 parents surveyed expressed interest in using the program (with 33 percent being “very interested”), while 13 percent reported they already use the program.

For many families, the outcome of the debate over lifting the cap could be life-changing. Cooper said access to the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit has been an unbelievable blessing for her children.

“It gives us access to something we would not have had access to otherwise,” Cooper said, “an education that I want for them to have and I wish for them to have.”