Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

• SAT weighted rank (2003): N/A
• ACT weighted rank (2003): 15th out of 25 states
• ALEC Academic Achievement Ranking: 35th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia
  
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Oklahoma offers interdistrict school choice, charter schools, Enterprise Schools, and on-line schooling.[1]

Background
During the 1995 legislative session, Senate Joint Resolution 17 was introduced to amend the Oklahoma constitution to provide vouchers for children in elementary and secondary schools. The voucher would have been worth 50 percent to 70 percent of the state's per-pupil expenditure. The bill died in committee.[2]

In June 1999, the Oklahoma legislature enacted House Bill 1759, which allows local school boards and career-technology school districts to charter public schools in districts with 5,000 or more students that are located in cities with a population of 500,000 or more (Oklahoma City and Tulsa).[3] The bill also included the Education Open Transfer Act, which allows interdistrict public school choice. Transfers are subject to guidelines adopted by local school boards.[4]

Also in 1999, H.B. 2671 was introduced to provide parents with a non-refundable tax credit of up to $500 for tuition. The bill died in committee.[5]

The Oklahoma City School District offers Enterprise Schools, a program that enables teachers, parents, and community leaders to contract with the board of education to operate a school. Such schools have greater flexibility than traditional public schools but less than charter schools.[6]

Oklahoma is the only state whose constitution guarantees a right to home-schooling. The National Center for Home Education estimated that 16,882 students were homeschooled in the state in 2003.[7]

In 1999, then-Governor Frank Keating signed H.B. 1650, which established a pilot Internet schooling program, the Virtual Internet School in Oklahoma Network (VISION), to provide Web-based instruction programs in nine public school districts. The program was amended in 2000 by H.B. 2662 and was launched in 2001. In 2001, approximately 95 Oklahoma school districts offered Internet-based courses, and enrollment in these courses is expected to increase in future years.[8]

Two choice bills were introduced in 2001. H.B. 1473 would have provided a $500 tax credit to parents for tuition and fees, and H.B. 1818 would have provided an income tax credit to donors of scholarships that enable students to attend a private school. H.B. 1818 specified that, "In order to claim the credit authorized by this section, the school board for the district in which the student provided with the private-school scholarship resides must approve a measure authorizing a scholarship to fully or partially subsidize the cost of attendance by students at a public school located within such district." Both bills died in committee.[9]

A voucher bill for low-income preschoolers (Senate Bill 1654) was introduced during the 2002 legislative session. This bill would have used Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds to provide vouchers to low-income parents to send their children to private preschools.[10] The bill died in committee.[11]

Three tax credit bills--House Bills 2413, 2620, and 2676--were introduced during the 2002 legislative session. H.B. 2413 would have provided an income tax credit of up to $500 for individuals or corporations that donated money to charitable scholarship organizations to fund scholarships for families with incomes below $50,000 and credits of up to $200 for donations for public school extracurricular activities. H.B. 2620 would have provided an income tax credit of up to $1,000 to corporations for donations to charitable scholarship organizations in Tulsa. Both bills died in committee. The third bill (H.B. 2676) would have allowed the state to permit up to $2 million in tax credits for donations to scholarship organizations; organizations would have received credits for scholarships of up to $2,000 or 80 percent of the private school tuition, whichever was less. This bill also died in committee.[12]

In 2003, S.B. 311 would have allowed public school officials to require home-school students to take state assessment tests. The bill also would have allowed the state board of education to create rules that would affect home-school students. The bill was defeated in the Senate on March 12, 2003, by a vote of 22 to 16.[13]

A bill to create vouchers for students with disabilities, S.B. 15, was introduced in February 2003. This bill would have created the Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program to begin in 2004. To qualify for these scholarships, students must have attended a public school in 2003-2004, and their selected private school must be approved to participate in the program.[14] S.B. 15 was referred to the appropriations committee, but no action was taken.[15]

H.B. 1749, introduced in 2003, would have created tax credits for contributions to scholarship organizations. The credits would have been worth up to $250 for an individual and $500 for couples filing jointly. The donations would have been made to scholarship organizations that provided the majority of their tuition assistance to students who are eligible for the federal free-lunch program. No action was taken before adjournment.[16]

A May 2004 poll of 400 registered Oklahoma voters revealed that only 45 percent of parents would send their child to a public school if they had the option of using a tax credit or voucher to send him to a private school instead.[17]

Developments in 2006

No developments in 2006.

State Choice Laws

See Education Commission of the States

Governor Brad Henry, a Democrat, does not support school choice.[18] Democrats control the Senate, and Republicans control the House.