Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed legislation that raises the cap on Oklahoma’s most prominent school-choice program, the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program, allowing more families to access private schools next year.

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. The largest tax credits go to those with the lowest incomes, and families with income of less than $150,000 per year are prioritized.

This school year, the families of 39,587 children used the Parental Choice Tax Credit program to send their children to a private school using $247.8 million in credits, according to the most recent report from the Oklahoma Tax Commission. Based on trends, demand is expected to exceed the existing $250 million cap during the 2026-2027 school year.

House Bill 3705, by House Speaker Kyle Hilbert and Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, increases the amount of school-choice tax credits to $275 million next year to ensure no families are left behind.

Stitt highlighted the bill in a post on X that focused on several education measures he signed into law this week, noting that HB 3705 is “expanding opportunities for parents to choose the best education for their kids.”

Hilbert and state Rep. Chad Caldwell, an Enid Republican who co-authored HB 3705, welcomed news of its signing.

“This program has been extremely well-received by Oklahoma families, as shown by record application numbers this year,” Caldwell said. “I truly believe education is the most important thing the state does for its citizens. A quality education has the power to change someone’s life. And parents, not the government, should have the power to decide the best educational path for their child. I’m glad the Legislature and the governor responded to the growing demand by expanding the cap for this vital program, so more parents have the flexibility to choose the education their children deserve.”

The Parental Choice Tax Credit program was established through House Bill 1934 in 2023. This program is part of the legislative commitment aimed at improving education in Oklahoma.

In addition to creating the popular school choice program in 2023, the Legislature has also invested more than $1 billion in new funding for public education in recent years, and overall revenue to public schools has surged by more than $3 billion since 2018, once local property taxes, federal funding, and other state funds are included.

“Parents deserve a choice of where to send their children to school,” said Hilbert, R-Bristow. “For many, that’s the local public school. However, if that school is not meeting their needs, parents should be able to put their tax dollars toward the place where their child will truly flourish.”

In contrast, Oklahoma House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson of Oklahoma City, a school-choice opponent, decried the expansion.

Munson noted that Oklahoma public schools have been ranked “dead last in the nation” and claimed Oklahoma public schools are going “without the critical financial investments needed to move us out of that ranking.”

However, according to financial data reported by schools to the state’s Oklahoma Cost Accounting System (OCAS), Oklahoma public schools had $9,586,994,906 in revenue from all sources (local, state, and federal) during the 2024-2025 school year, aside from cash forward and similar savings.

Since districts reported having an average daily attendance of just under 645,904 during the 2024-2025 school year, that translated into a per-pupil revenue average of $14,842 per student.

That’s a nearly 53-percent increase from the per-pupil revenue Oklahoma schools reported in the 2017-2018 school year.

That per-pupil figure is expected to climb further since this year’s state appropriation for K-12 public schools set another record, providing an increase of over $230 million.

Per-pupil revenue in Oklahoma public schools also exceeds, by a significant amount, the average private-school tuition in Oklahoma.

According to Private School Review, the average private-school tuition in Oklahoma is currently $11,274 per year, based on that site’s survey of 76 private schools. While that survey does not include all private schools in Oklahoma, it includes most of the larger private schools in the state.

Oklahoma Tax Commission data show that the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program has allowed thousands of children to shift from public school to private school in Oklahoma, with 72 percent of those children coming from low-income or middle-class families with incomes of $150,000 or less.

The Parental Choice Tax Credit program is administered by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, which opened applications for the 2026–27 school year on March 16. The commission reported that nearly 27,000 applications for the upcoming school year were submitted on the first day alone.

The application period for the tax credit closes at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, June 15. Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit all required documentation before the deadline to ensure consideration.

More information, including application guidance and eligibility details, is available on the Oklahoma Tax Commission’s website: https://oklahoma.gov/tax/individuals/parental-choice-tax-credit.html.