Oklahoma House Speaker Kills School Choice Despite Support From Voters And Governor
he time of day in his chamber. His announcement is shocking since school choice is on the Republican Party platform and McCall is a Republican.
Dead on arrival. Maybe even dead before arrival. That is pretty much the status of the Oklahoma school choice bill, one in which House Speaker Charles McCall said won’t get the time of day in his chamber. His announcement is shocking since school choice is on the Republican Party platform and McCall is a Republican.
Senate Bill 1647, also known as the Oklahoma Empowerment Act, will not be getting a hearing. McCall made that point perfectly clear during a press conference where McCall says that the bill isn’t a priority among House members despite a lot of support from parents, legislature, and from Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt. But according to McCall, “I don’t plan to hear that bill this year.”
After hearing McCall’s decision on SB 1647, Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat, who authored the school choice bill, stated that he is “more determined than ever to charge that hill.” Then he continued saying via The Oklahoman, “Nothing will stop me from persisting until all parents regardless of their race, zip code, or income, are able to find the right fit for their child.”
According to McCall, rural lawmakers are greatly concerned about SB 1647. They feel public schools in those rural Oklahoma areas would be destroyed if the funding was taken from them. The bill, as written, would allow for any Oklahoma student to take their state funds and use them to cover private-school or homeschool costs. What some Oklahoma lawmakers, which include McCall, are keen to point out is that there are very few private school options in those rural areas. McCall says this presents a “geographical issue.”
But Treat wasn’t having anything that McCall was laying down. He says that it is a “false narrative” in saying that there are no school choice options in the rural spaces of Oklahoma. He even said that it could prompt legislation to call for the opening of new private schools. The bottom line, though, is allowing parents the right to choose.
In his objection to SB 1647, McCall doubted that school vouchers would even be a help to those kids in rural areas, pretty much making school choice a moot point. “The obvious question for a person that lives in Atoka, Oklahoma, population 3,000 people, 12,000 in the county, (is) what does a kid with a voucher do?” McCall said via Yahoo News. “What do they do with that? The population is so sparse that are there going to be options that really pop up? So, yeah, that definitely would be the rural concern for the members I serve with, including myself.”
SB 1647 would allow parents to set aside their state funds into an account and then spend these funds on any school-related cost. This school choice fund can be used as long as the child does not attend a public school. If that would be the case, the funding would go away.
So, what kinds of funds are we talking about here? Presently, Oklahoma public schools get a total of $9,399 per student. Of that, the state contributes anywhere from $3,500 to $5,200 per student, all depending on the child’s grade level. Those state funds would potentially be leaving the public school system.
Shawn Hime, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association, feels now is the absolute wrong time to be taking state funds from the public schools. “That’s redirecting money that we finally started to make up ground (on) and get our teachers to a more competitive pay structure, redirecting money away from Oklahoma students to fund private school students or homeschool students where there’s no accountability, no transparency,” he said.
Another big issue, says the opponents of SB 1647, is that private schools wouldn’t have to report how they use the funds to the government. Private schools also don’t have to submit test results in order for the state to track a student’s academic progress. Private schools do, however, submit all that information directly to the parents who pay them. Private schools are directly accountable to parents, not the government.
Treat says there is a lot of support from Republican senators to see this school choice bill move forward. Oklahoma’s Senate Democrats, not surprisingly, feel the exact opposite. They oppose sending any taxpayer funds to private schools. House Democrats feel the same way, saying that this issue is a non-starter. “In the Democratic caucus, we are not willing to negotiate on any sort of public dollars going to private schools,” said Minority Leader Emily Virgin, D-Norman.
McCall and those who oppose SB 1647 are about to see what the power of the people is all about. According to a recent EdChoice poll, 86% of school parents are on board with school choice, while another 62% of all adults feel school choice should be given.
It’ll be interesting to follow this battle, given so many are on the side of Oklahoma school choice. In fact, school choice rights are not only being sought after by parents in Oklahoma but they are being fought for in numerous states in the nation. Parents are finally finding their school choice voices and many have the voices of the legislature behind them as well.
