Since 2018, per-student revenue in Oklahoma public schools has surged by 51 percent—but less than half the money is reaching the classroom in about 150 Oklahoma school districts.

This week, school officials lobbied lawmakers to make sure it stays that way, as school lobbyists urged lawmakers to defeat legislation requiring that at least half of school funds be spent in the classroom.

House Bill 1280, by state Rep. Chad Caldwell, would have required that 50 percent of a school district’s annual budget go to “instructional expenditures” starting in the 2025-2026 school year.

Under the bill, schools that fail to spend at least half of their funding on instructional activities for four years would be required to “increase compensation for all teachers in the school district.”

“We are just asking schools to put their money where their mouth is,” said Caldwell, R-Enid. “We are told that money is the driving factor for our kids’ outcomes, so we’re going to ask them to invest and prioritize our kids.”

The bill was amended to allow transportation costs to be counted as classroom expenses to address the concerns of rural schools.

The Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA), 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.”

The Oklahoma Parent Legislative Advocacy Coalition (PLAC) backed school administrators who opposed the legislation, dismissing calls to make classroom funding half a school’s budget as “spending unnecessarily in classrooms in order to meet a baseless budget mandate.”

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 when student enrollment was 698,923, an average of $13,736 per student.

That’s a 51 percent increase in per-student 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.

Those figures do not include billions of dollars in carryover and similar funds, which totaled more than $4 billion in 2023-2024.

HB 1280 failed on a 36-57 vote in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

The defeat of legislation that would boost classroom spending and teacher salaries comes as academic outcomes in Oklahoma public schools continue to decline, despite the massive infusion of cash since 2018.

In 2018, Oklahoma high-school graduates had an average ACT composite score of 19.3 (with a 36 representing a perfect score). By 2024, Oklahoma high-school graduates had an average ACT composite score of 17.6.

Outcomes in elementary grades have also declined dramatically.

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

Notably, the per-student revenue available in Oklahoma public schools now significantly exceeds the average private school tuition not only in Oklahoma but also nationwide.

According to Private School Review, the average private school tuition in Oklahoma is $8,145 per year for the 2024-2025 school year.

Oklahoma public schools’ per-student funding of $13,736 per student is also greater than the national average private school tuition, based on data compiled by Private School Review. On a state-by-state basis, Oklahoma’s per-student revenue for public schools exceeds the average private-school tuition in 37 states, based on Private School Review’s data.

While opponents suggested that spending half of school funding on classroom instruction is unduly burdensome, schools across most of the nation spend a much larger share of funds on classroom instruction.

Caldwell has noted that in the average school nationwide, 62 percent of school spending goes to instructional costs.