School choice is on Oklahoma's legislative menu again, lawmakers say

Bartlesville area state lawmakers Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville, and Rep. Judd Strom, R-Copan, are preparing for a battle at the state Capitol over whether public school funding should be tapped to pay for private school tuition.

School choice, also known as school vouchers, is expected to gain traction in the state Legislature this session, particularly since both Gov. Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent Ryan Walters have made it a priority.

The school choice concept is sweeping the nation. Bills have been signed into law in Iowa and Arizona recently, and many other states' legislators are debating similar legislation.

Last month, Daniels introduced a bill that would allow parents to use a portion of the state per-pupil spending for private school tuition. It would also allow parents to use the funding for fees, uniforms, technological devices and instructional materials.

Daniels envisions her bill, the Education Freedom Act, as a way to help kids in failing districts or that are being failed by their public schools.

"You know it's time to empower Oklahoma parents to be able to choose the best education for their own children regardless of ZIP code or financial circumstances," said Daniels.

Strom disagrees with Daniels and points to the Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarships and the Open Transfer Law passed last year.

"Oklahoma parents are already empowered to make that choice because every child is served by a public education system in the state of Oklahoma, and there isn't anything stopping parents from choosing other forms of education if they want it," said Strom.

He calls Oklahoma's homeschool system the "freest and fairest" in the nation and provides parents with many alternatives.

When asked if her bill had oversight or accountability in the quality of education that students would receive from private education service providers similar to that of public education, Daniels said, "The accountability in my program is to the parents."

Daniels says her bill allows for "maximum freedom" and "maximum flexibility" for parents and education service providers — for Strom, that is a problem.

"With every agency in the state of Oklahoma that falls under the government purview, I think it is very important to be able to audit where every one of those tax dollars goes and exactly how those are spent and whether they're being spent effectively and efficiently," said Strom.

Along with minimal oversight and control in how dollars are spent, most of Oklahoma's accredited private schools are religious in nature, such as Wesleyan Christian School in Bartlesville, Bishop Kelley High School in Tulsa and Oklahoma Islamic Academy in Edmond.

For Daniels, that's no issue because she says public dollars will be given directly to parents through education savings accounts and parents can choose to spend the money on any accredited private school of their choice.

"The bill specifically says we cannot meddle in the affairs of the doctrine of the curriculum of their schools," said Daniels.

Daniels added that if the Office of the State Treasurer − which will be charged with administering and distributing the funds − attempts to impose any additional regulation or require alterations in creed, practices, admissions policy or curriculum of private schools, the agency's funding will be cut by 5%.

Strom said he couldn't support the bill in its current state.

"We have a constitutional duty at the state level to provide for a free and fair public education, and private schools are neither free and very often not fair," said Strom.

Why not both?

Daniels said she was tired of hearing that there can't be school choice without sacrificing public schools. She said her bill is the compromise needed.

"This is recognizing that some children do not thrive in their public schools, and where there are parents who've identified this and want an alternative to try and achieve academic success for their child, it's time to give them that option," said Daniels.

Daniels said she plans to allocate extra funding to the state Department of Education to pay for the school voucher program. The bill would allocate $275 million to the program. She said that number was determined by multiplying the number of students enrolled in a private school by roughly $5,000 a piece.

Even by allocating enough funding to allow every child currently enrolled in private education, Daniels said she estimates only 500 to 1,000 students would take advantage of the program early on.

"Well, we have a program, the Lindsay Nicole Henry (special needs program)... was adopted in 2010," said Daniels. "As of today, we have 1,245 students statewide. That's a very small number of special needs kids, and it's taken 10 years for that program to grow to have that many kids in it. So I anticipate this will be slow growth."

Oklahoma lawmakers passed a law to launch the Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarships in 2012 to allow students who meet income and zoning requirements to have a portion of their private school tuition paid. As of 2021, that program awarded more than 6,600 scholarships at a cost of $18.6 million, according to its annual report.

Daniels said this bill isn't meant to attack public schools in any way. Yet the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs supports the bill and calls for constituents to remind their legislators, "Woke indoctrination in schools isn't going to stop unless we give parents real educational choice."

"It puts more pressure on the public schools because now there are more viable options for parents," said Daniels.

"This is more government and it is tax dollars being spent without accountability," Strom argues.

He has reason to demand accountability.

Last summer, a U.S. Department of Education audit found $652,700 in federal pandemic funds were misspent in Oklahoma because the state failed to place proper guardrails on a program that provided $1,500 grants directly to families. Rather than spending the money on educational needs, some recipients of the program bought televisions, car stereo equipment, coffee makers, home decor and other items.

That program was touted by Walters as a test run for a statewide school voucher program. In a joint investigation, Oklahoma Watch and The Frontier detailed Walters' involvement in getting a no-bid contract for Florida-based vendor ClassWallet to run that program.

Earlier this week, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced that he dismissed a lawsuit filed by his predecessor accusing ClassWallet of mishandling federal COVID relief dollars and that he instead will instead investigate Oklahomans responsible for the misspending of funds.

"It is clear that a number of state actors and other individuals are ultimately responsible for millions in misspent federal relief dollars," said Drummond.

Same words, different title

At the same time as the release of Daniels' bill, state Senator Shane Jett filed another bill, the Oklahoma Parent Empowerment Act for Kids, which shares roughly 80% of the same language and essentially copies Senator Pro Tem Greg Treat's Oklahoma Empowerment Act that failed to pass the state Senate last year.

The bills appear to be heavily influenced by model legislation called the Education Savings Account Act, which was posted by the American Legislative Exchange Council six years ago. Daniels is a member of ALEC's Board of Directors.

ALEC is a nonprofit organization of conservative legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share model legislation with other states. The group has been accused of allowing corporate interests to have outsized influence in shaping model legislation, which becomes law in many states.

A flurry of bills with language similar to ALEC's model legislation is being introduced in statehouses across the country, including one recently signed into law in Iowa.

Daniels said those who helped craft her bill include "mommies and daddies of homeschoolers," the American Federation for Children, Americans for Prosperity, the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs and other educational choice organizations.

"There are other states doing similar initiatives like this. But we're definitely cutting-edge here to go universal school choice," she said.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: School choice is on Oklahoma's legislative menu again, lawmakers say