OKPOLICY.ORG
What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
Policy Matters: Don’t make a bad idea worse: Oklahoma’s Parental Choice Tax Credit was supposed to help families afford private school, with a $250 million cap to protect the state budget and public schools. Now, the governor and some lawmakers want to scrap that cap entirely. This would take a bad policy and make it much worse — draining funds from public schools, giving wealthy families more tax breaks, and leaving rural communities behind. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
Proposed bill could increase support for children-focused nonprofits (Capitol Update): Sen. Jerry Alvord, R-Wilson, has pre-filed Senate Bill 1398, an interesting and, I believe, good bill creating the “Children’s Promise Act.” The bill would create a 100 percent tax credit, up to 50 percent of a donor’s income tax liability, for donations to certain tax exempt 501(c)(3) organizations. The concept of the bill is to allow taxpayers to determine the use of up to half of their income tax by contributing to qualifying organizations. It’s sort of a “taxpayers appropriation committee.” [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
OK Policy in the News
Oklahoma private school tax credit program primarily benefits higher-income families, data shows: The program, which took effect in 2024, was designed to financially help families send their children to private schools. However, analysis shows 70% of the money and 70% of the families receiving the tax credit earn more than $75,000 per year. “This is significant because the average household income in Oklahoma is about $63,000 so fully half of Oklahomans aren’t benefiting from this,” said David Hamby, communications director with The Oklahoma Policy Institute. [KSWO]
Youth organization hosts state budget information event: A local non-partisan organization hosted an informational event to educate young people about state government on Jan. 9. Oklahoma Youth for Change showcased a breakdown of how Oklahoma plans to spend its money in 2026. The event will feature guest speaker Aanahita Irani Ervin from the Oklahoma Policy Institute. [KSWO]
Weekly What’s That
Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credits
The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act, passed as HB 1934 during the 2023 legislative session, provides tax credits to parents who send their children to private school, as well as a tax credit for homeschooled students. Several amendments to the tax credits program were approved in the 2024 session (HB 3388). Passage of the Parental Choice Tax Credit Act marked the culmination of many years of intense advocacy from proponents of school choice and private schools over the staunch opposition of defenders of traditional public schools, especially in rural areas, and followed the failure to enact education savings accounts or vouchers in prior legislative sessions.
The amount of the tax credit, which can be used for tuition or fees at an accredited private school, depends on a family’s total adjusted gross income. The maximum credit of up to $7,500 per student is for families with household income less than $75,000 and the minimum credit is up to $5,000 per students for families with incomes exceeding $250,000. Parents can apply to receive the credit up-front in two installments. The homeschooling credit may be claimed up to $1,000 per student for qualified expenses, which include instructional materials, tutoring services, test preparation fees, and tuition and fees for online learning programs.
The total amount of the private school tax credit is capped at $150 million for tax year 2024, $200 million for 2025 and $250 million for future years; the homeschool credit is capped at $5 million per year. Families with incomes less than $75,000 have priority in the allocation of credits.
In school year 2024-25, the program distributed $248.5 million in credits to 39,229 students, of whom just 4,071 (10.4 percent) were previously enrolled in public schools. Of the 39,229 students benefiting from the credit, nearly three-quarters (72 percent) had household incomes of $75,000 or higher. The homeschool was credit was claimed by 2,376 households in the amount of $3.3M.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“A strong public school is a public good. When public schools thrive, we see home values rise, local businesses flourish, crime rates drop, and community relationships strengthen.”
– Megan Shelburne, a Deer Creek parent and former educator, arguing that public schools function as civic infrastructure that benefits entire communities, not just families with school-aged children. [Megan Shelburne / The Oklahoman]
Op-Ed / Editorial of the Week
Six ways the Trump administration tried to erase MLK’s legacy in 2025
More than 60 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement helped generate the moral impetus and political will for U.S. lawmakers to pass sweeping legislation to combat the oppressive legacies of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the many expressions of racial discrimination in the United States. Through landmark legislation, the U.S. outlawed racial segregation, prohibited employment and housing discrimination, and dismantled legal barriers to voter registration—challenging a centuries-long denial of basic human and civil rights for people of color.
While acknowledging that these legislative achievements led to “some very wonderful things,” President Trump recently mischaracterized this historic period as one in which white people “were very badly treated” amid “reverse discrimination.” The president’s unfounded remarks explain why this administration has directly attacked more than half a century of progress toward racial and economic justice.
Here are six ways the Trump-Vance administration worked to undermine Dr. King’s legacy and curtail economic justice for people of color in 2025 …
Numbers of the Week
-
$30.75 billion – Oklahoma received $30.75 billion in census-guided federal spending in Fiscal Year 2023. This funding went towards Medicaid, Medicare, and other healthcare spending; infrastructure; education; economic development; housing; and more. An accurate Census is more than just a headcount because it’s the foundation for funding allocations for schools, medical clinics, roads, and more. [Oklahoma Fact Sheet / Project on Government Accountability]
-
10.8% – The year-over-year decline in Oklahoma’s sales tax collections in the first quarter of 2025, the largest drop among the 46 states with broad-based sales taxes. [Tax Policy Center]
-
5,000 – The estimated number of unauthorized immigrant children enrolled in Oklahoma public schools in 2019. That’s about 0.71% of the state’s 703,650 students that year. [Migration Policy Institute]
-
33 – The number of private schools located in rural Oklahoma during the 2021–22 school year, representing just 17.4% of all private schools statewide. Because most private schools are concentrated outside rural communities, voucher-style policies offer little benefit to rural students and fail to address the need for direct investment in Oklahoma’s public schools. [Learning Policy Institute]
-
$39,038 – The median income for all workers in Oklahoma was $39,038 in 2023, which was the nation’s 8th lowest. For this report, earnings included income from wages, salary, self-employment, or a personal business or farm but do not include other sources such as Social Security, pensions, public assistance, rental income, or investment earnings. [U.S. Department of Labor]
What We’re Reading
-
Q&A: Communities Without Vital Data: Every year the U.S. Census Bureau publishes the American Community Survey (ACS), a detailed dataset that captures information on American social, economic, housing, and demographic trends. The ACS serves as an annual supplement to what the Census provides, which is only collected once every 10 years. But some Republican legislators have proposed making the ACS a voluntary survey, citing concerns about privacy and government overreach. Data experts say that a voluntary survey will disproportionately hurt rural communities and marginalized groups by reducing the quality of the data available for and about those communities. [The Daily Yonder]
-
Real State Tax Revenues Decline Amid Growing Fiscal Uncertainty: State tax revenue growth remains uneven and fragile, with many states failing to meet historical trends despite occasional revenue spikes. Sluggish income and sales tax collections — combined with past rate cuts — are narrowing fiscal flexibility as federal support is winding down. States must shore up their revenue systems to maintain service levels, sustain fiscal stability, and prepare for future uncertainties. Building resilience now is essential to avoid abrupt trade-offs in essential investments. [Urban Institute]
-
What harsh immigration policies mean for students, families, and schools: Harsh immigration policies are undermining access to public education by creating fear and uncertainty among immigrant families — leading some to withdraw children from school and compromising students’ sense of safety and belonging. Policies restricting enrollment, cutting funding for English learners, or requiring disclosure of immigration status have eroded schools’ roles as inclusive community hubs and forced districts into crisis response instead of learning environments. [Brookings Institute]
-
How the School Choice Agenda Harms Rural Students: School choice policies like charter expansions and voucher programs tend to disadvantage rural students by drawing resources and staff away from already under-resourced local schools. Rural communities face logistical challenges such as long travel distances, limited provider options, and smaller student populations that make choice options less accessible and effective. By weakening traditional public schools without offering realistic alternatives, these policies can reduce educational quality and stability for rural learners. Supporting rural education requires investments that strengthen local schools, address workforce shortages, and ensure equitable access to programs rather than shifting funds outward. [Center for American Progress]
- Everyone is talking about affordability — and making the same mistake: Today’s affordability debate, however, focuses almost entirely on prices, as if the only way to make life affordable is to make things cheaper. But that approach misses the bigger picture. Affordability depends on both prices and wages. The roots of today’s affordability crisis actually lie not in recent price spikes, but in the long-term suppression of workers’ pay. [Economic Policy Institute via MS NOW]
