Oklahoma's House Bill 1934: Benefit to private school students or threat to public education funding?
TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — House Bill 1934 is a voucher program written to help relieve tuition costs for students attending accredited private schools in Oklahoma.
These vouchers can be responsible for up to $7,500 in tuition costs, but what does this mean for public schools and taxpayers?
Former legislator and current professor at OU-Tulsa, Rodger Randle, says that this will have a negative impact on resources for public schools.
“The house bill of course actually reduces available taxpayer money. So, it will impact on the short-term public schools because there will be less money for public schools,” said Randle.
State Representative John Waldron had a similar outlook on the repercussions of the bill.
“It’s gonna come out of the general revenues of the state and we’re gonna have to reduce our spending on critical government services like public education for 700,000 kids,” said Waldron.
Randle told us that private schools could potentially use the vouchers but also raise tuition at the same time.
“That gives the private schools an opportunity to raise in tuition and raise their costs because families won’t have to pay more for the increased tuition costs, it’ll just be covered by the tax cut that the state government provided,” said Randle.
Waldron tells us that there is only a select group of people benefitting from the passing of HB 1934.
“Affluent families who already have children enrolled in private schools are going to be the primary beneficiaries of this $150 million tax giveaway,” said Waldron.
Both Randle and Waldron say that some families may transition from public to private schooling, but those numbers are slim.