With education ‘on the wrong track,’ Oklahomans support parental choice

Only 40% of Oklahoma parents say they would choose a regular public school if given the option—while 56% would choose something else.

Do Oklahomans want educational freedom?

“School freedom gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public school or private school which they believe best serves their needs.” 

Do Oklahomans support the idea? Click here.

Oklahomans’ support for school choice is becoming difficult to deny

[This post is updated when new survey data are released.]

Since 2014, numerous scientific surveys of Oklahoma voters have measured Oklahomans’ views on various forms of private-school choice (vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts, et al.). And time after time, they have found support. Here is the survey research that has shown support for parental choice:

• Morning Consult (general Oklahoma population), rolling 12-month results
• University of Oklahoma THRIVE Center survey (Oklahoma adults), March 2024
• News 9 / News on 6 survey (likely Oklahoma GOP voters), August 2022 
• Cole Hargrave Snodgrass and Associates survey (registered Oklahoma voters), January 2022
• WPA Intelligence survey (likely Oklahoma voters), November 2021
• CHS & Associates survey (registered Oklahoma voters), September 2020
• Cor Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), August 2020
• Amber Integrated survey (registered Oklahoma voters), December 2019
• Cor Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), August 2019
• WPA Intelligence survey (registered Oklahoma voters), April 2019
• WPA Intelligence survey (registered Oklahoma voters), January 2019
• Cor Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), May 2018
• Cor Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), August 2017
• SoonerPoll survey (likely Oklahoma voters), July 2016
• SoonerPoll survey (likely Oklahoma voters), January 2016
• Cole Hargrave Snodgrass and Associates survey (registered Oklahoma voters), December 2015
• Tarrance Group survey (registered Oklahoma voters), January 2015
• SoonerPoll survey (likely Oklahoma voters), January 2015
• Tarrance Group survey (registered Oklahoma GOP primary voters), July 2014
• Braun Research survey (registered Oklahoma voters), January 2014

And here is the survey research showing that Oklahomans oppose school choice:

• Tarrance Group survey (registered Oklahoma voters), November 2022 
• Tarrance Group survey (likely Oklahoma voters), March 2022
• Public Opinion Strategies survey (likely Oklahoma voters), March 2015

Like the film critic Pauline Kael, who couldn't understand how Nixon beat McGovern (given that everyone she knew had voted for McGovern), many in the public education community’s epistemic bubble simply cannot come to terms with the reality that most Oklahomans favor educational choice. But a fair reading of the evidence shows pretty clearly that Oklahoma parents want options and they want the money to follow the child.

So why doesn’t the money follow the child? Political scientists can explain why—government employees are able to pick their politicians and keep kids trapped in an iron triangle—but that’s small consolation for the children who need options right now.

Inaction on parental choice is impossible

An overwhelming 74% of GOP primary voters believe the money should follow the child.

[Guest post by Jonathan Small]

Oklahoma parents are demanding parental school choice and lawmakers are paying attention.

A new poll by Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates (CHS) found 61% of Oklahoma voters support school choice, which was defined as “the right to use tax dollars raised for their child’s education to send their child to the school of their choice whether it is public, private, online, or charter.”

Among Republicans primary voters, support reached 74%. Support was consistent in both urban and rural areas.

That strong support is no surprise, especially considering ongoing public-school closures. Those closures are wreaking havoc and destroying opportunity. This is evident in increased failure rates in academic courses and significant learning loss.

In August, an official from Tulsa Public Schools even told the State Board of Education that district officials expected “that our least-reached students will have lost approximately a year more learning than would have otherwise been the case because of the COVID-related interruptions. So if I’m a student who might otherwise have been predicted to be two years below grade level, we’re anticipating that that student will now be approximately three years below grade level.”

Some school officials now want to end state testing, ensuring parents will not be notified of a child’s learning loss.

Oklahomans’ support for school choice is not tied solely to COVID-19. Polls have found strong support for parental school choice repeatedly since 2014. And Oklahoma’s political leaders have embraced it.

In January 2019, House Speaker Charles McCall said lawmakers “must put parents back in charge of their children’s education and give underprivileged families more options and more opportunity to thrive.”

This year Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat endorsed raising the cap on Oklahoma’s tax-credit scholarship program, saying, “Where there are kids that lack opportunity, my heart pains for them. We need to make sure they are not forgotten.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt endorsed school choice in his 2020 State of the State speech, saying, “Let’s work together to make sure all students at all schools have access to an innovative, enriching curriculum, regardless of ZIP code.”

Yet, despite public support and the backing of legislative leaders, the bidding was done of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, socialist Bernie Sanders, and the OEA/NEA union, which heavily opposed both school choice and President Trump and instead backed Biden and Kendra Horn.

Thankfully for the most vulnerable, there is now no reason for delay. In addition to public support, GOP lawmakers also have the numbers on their side. Republicans now hold 82 of the 101 seats in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, and 39 of the 48 seats in the Oklahoma Senate. It takes only 51 and 25 votes, respectively, to pass a bill in each chamber.

With this favorable environment for saving the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable through significant expansions of parental school choice, inaction will be impossible.

Support for Oklahoma ed reform hits new high

"While 2020 has ushered in many changes," writes pollster Pat McFerron, "one constant is that voters in Oklahoma continue to support school choice, including allowing parents to use tax dollars to send their children to private schools."

In a survey of 500 registered Oklahoma voters conducted Sept. 20-24, 2020 (margin of error: plus/minus 4.3%), respondents were asked:

"School choice gives parents the right to use tax dollars raised for their child’s education to send their child to the school of their choice—whether it is public, private, online, or charter—which best serves their needs. Generally speaking, do you favor or oppose the concept of school choice for Oklahoma? 

• Strongly Favor .......... 40%
• Somewhat Favor .......... 21%
• Somewhat Oppose .......... 9%
• Strongly Oppose .......... 24%
• Undecided .,........ 6%

"It looks as though the pandemic has strengthened the resolve of Republicans who now support school-choice by better than a three-to-one margin [72% to 23%]," McFerron writes, "while the issue divides Democrats more than we have ever seen [44% favor, 47% oppose]."

In sum, McFerron writes, "one thing is clear: Voters are now focused on reforming public education. They embrace fundamental reforms more now than at any time we have been polling—something that now dates back more than 30 years."

Did the education system play a role in our current cultural unrest?

Protesters set up a guillotine outside the home of billionaire Jeff Bezos on June 28, 2020. A flyer promoting the march
on Bezos's home called for an end to his "abuse and profiteering" and to "abolish the police, the prisons, and Amazon."

In a recent survey, likely Oklahoma voters were asked: "Do you agree or disagree that the current cultural unrest is rooted in what our students have learned in the public education system?"

As you can see here, Republicans and Democrats differ sharply. 

Oklahomans say per-student funding should follow the student

By a two-to-one margin, Oklahomans say that if schools don’t open in the fall, parents should be able to take their tax dollars and go to another school. This according to a statewide survey of active likely voters conducted August 10–13, 2020. The survey, with a sample size of 630 and a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percent, was commissioned by OCPA and conducted by Cor Strategies (script here, results here, methodology here).

Voters were also asked about their view of homeschooling: “With COVID-19 forcing many parents to pursue home-based education solutions, would you say your opinion on homeschooling has become more or less favorable as a result of the coronavirus?”

• Much more favorable ... 31%
• Somewhat more favorable ... 26%
• Total more favorable ... 57%
• Somewhat less favorable ... 11%
• Much less favorable ... 15%
• Total less favorable ... 26%
• Unsure ... 18%

The “more favorable” view prevailed among Republicans (62% more favorable, 21% less favorable), Independents (51% more favorable, 28% less favorable), and Democrats (52% more favorable, 28% less favorable).

School choice, funding increases can coexist

Oklahomans are strongly supportive of public education, Ray Carter reports. And they also support educational choice.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Voters want Oklahoma officials to honor Janus rights

Interesting survey results here.

Who you gonna call?

[Guest post by Jonathan Small]

When the movie “Ghostbusters” premiered in the 1980s, it was just a comedy. But if it’s remade (again) in 2019, the setting may be in Oklahoma’s public school system. That’s because there’s reason to think many districts are receiving funding for “ghost” students who do not attend those schools.

This issue gained attention when it was recently alleged an online charter school has received funding for “ghost” students, but that problem extends statewide.

Here’s why: Oklahoma law distributes state aid based on several factors, and one factor is a district’s average daily membership (ADM). State law allows districts to use the highest weighted ADM of the two preceding school years. As a result, if a district has 400 students one year, 380 the next, and 360 the following year, that district may be funded as though it still has 400 students when it has just 360.

It’s even possible for a student to be counted in multiple districts at the same time if a child moves from a district with declining enrollment to one with surging enrollment.

Just because this is currently legal doesn’t make it a good idea. Given the financial challenges constantly highlighted at schools, why would we expend money paying districts to educate children who are not at those schools?

By the way, “ghost” funding doesn’t occur just at one type of school. While some rural districts may benefit, so can Oklahoma’s largest districts—Oklahoma City and Tulsa—which have also experienced declining enrollment. In the urban centers, families have had good reason to move out, so why would state lawmakers leave in place a system that financially rewards districts like Oklahoma City for poor performance that drives students away?

Pinning down the number of “ghost” students being double-counted or still reflected in district ADMs after moving out of state is no easy task, but there are some hints. According to the Oklahoma Department of Education, the high-year ADM for all schools combined in the 2019 state budget year was 711,560. That compares to a reported total enrollment of 698,586 as of the most recent count, which occurred on Oct. 1, 2018.

That’s a difference of almost 13,000 students. Now, not all those 13,000 are “ghost” students. But if even half of them are, that would easily translate into tens of millions of dollars that have been misallocated for educating nonexistent students.

States like Indiana and Arizona have stopped using backward-looking student counts that result in ghost-student funding and instead rely on current-year headcounts. There’s no reason Oklahoma can’t do the same.

Conservatives and liberals disagree on education policy and spending priorities, but surely we can all agree that paying to “educate imaginary students” should not even be on the list.

UPDATES:

• "We're allocating close to 200 million of your tax dollars to students who don't exist," says Gov. Kevin Stitt. "This is unacceptable." Adds state Rep. Kyle Hilbert: "Every year our schools receive less money per student because our formula sends out money for ghost students, students that do not actually exist. We must end this practice of watering down school finances by (instead) funding schools based on the number of students they actually have in their classrooms."
• Enrollment figures released in January 2021 show that some districts are being funded for hundreds or even thousands of nonexistent students. In all, "districts may receive at least $195 million combined for 55,236 'ghost' students who do not attend classes in the district but are nonetheless included in enrollment counts used to determine state funding for each district." In short, this farce is now too big to ignore.
• Oklahoma voters are in a ghostbusting mood, according to a survey of 500 registered Oklahoma voters conducted Sept. 20-24, 2020, by CHS & Associates (margin of error: +/- 4.3%). "This reform is really a no-brainer for most voters," says pollster PatMcFerron, "with three-quarters being supportive. Among Republicans, support expands even more. Even among registered Democrats, however, there is a 42-point advantage for proponents." Specifically, respondents were asked: “As you may know, Oklahoma’s school districts currently receive their funding based on the highest number of students they have served during any of the past three school years. This means that districts with shrinking enrollment are receiving funds for students they are not serving and that those with growing populations are getting less per student than they would otherwise. Would you favor or oppose legislation that funded schools based on the number of students they are serving during that particular school year?"
• Strongly Favor .......... 51%
• Somewhat Favor .......... 24%
• Somewhat Oppose .......... 7%
• Strongly Oppose .......... 12%
• Undecided .......... 6%
• State Rep. Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) is sounding the alarm that the number of double-counted students is about to increase dramatically.
• Oklahoma school districts are getting paid for “ghost students,” says the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, “and they will fight, fight to the death, to maintain those.”

My assigned district school? Some say no thanks

School choice is further along in some other places than it is in Oklahoma.

For example, the Raleigh News & Observer reports today ("1 in 5 NC students don’t attend traditional public schools, new figures show") that "the percentage of North Carolina’s 1.8 million K-12 students attending traditional public schools dropped to 79.9% this year."

Last week in the Tallahassee Democrat, former OCPA research assistant Patrick Gibbons pointed out that "in the span of a generation, Florida has gone from 10 percent of students attending something other than assigned public schools to 47 percent." Education researcher Matt Ladner has noted that in greater Phoenix "fewer than 50% of students attend their assigned district school."

Oklahoma is not there yet, but we're moving in that direction. One hopes that over time our political leaders will align public policy more and more with their constituents' preferences. 

Let teachers vote on unions

Likely Oklahoma voters—Republican, Democrat, and Independent alike—support the idea overwhelmingly.

Taxpayers' ROI on public education is not good, survey says

According to a new survey commissioned by OCPA and conducted by WPA Intelligence, only a third of Oklahoma voters say taxpayers are getting a good return on their investment in public education. Just over half (51 percent) say the ROI is bad.

Proposed tax break would help parents

A few years back, I suggested in the Tulsa World that Oklahoma’s political leaders should appreciate parents who undertake the hard work of educating their own children at home. These parents provide a benefit to society without making demands on budget-conscious politicians. Indeed, according to my back-of-the-envelope calculation, my homeschooling wife and I will save the politicians well over half a million dollars. That’s money they can use to build roads and bridges, incarcerate criminals, or pay public-school teachers.

Now, most parents choose home education because they're committed to it, regardless of the cost. Many of them don't want—indeed would never accept—something like government-funded vouchers. Many would. After all, on occasion the thought has crossed our mind: how about a little something, you know, for the effort?

A tax break, for example. As the Home School Legal Defense Association explains, "tax credits are not funding—rather, they are a way of returning the people’s own money to them. HSLDA believes that tax credits can help homeschoolers avoid the burden of double taxation, and in the past has supported most tax credit bills." (Caveat: "Beware of legislation that may seem like an educational tax credit but is really a 'refundable tax credit.' A regular educational tax credit reduces your total tax burden on a dollar-for-dollar basis, whereas refundable tax credits apply even if you don’t have a tax bill. Refundable tax credits are vouchers in disguise.")

One hopes they'll support this one: House Bill 1160 by Oklahoma state Rep. Rande Worthen (R-Lawton). The bill provides a non-refundable tax credit for homeschoolers, for private-school parents, and even for some public-school parents. And it appears to be a popular idea. A statewide survey of registered Oklahoma voters was commissioned by OCPA and conducted from January 29 to January 31 by WPA Intelligence, a highly respected firm. (One of the firm's clients, Sen. Ted Cruz, says "the team at WPAi are the best in business and I am proud to have had them as the pollsters for my presidential campaign." WPAi also did the polling for Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt's campaign.) Here's the relevant question:

“A proposal has been made to enact an individual tax credit for approved educational expenses. Oklahoma parents could receive a state tax credit of up to $2,500 per child for public-school expenses such as costs for band instruments and uniforms, athletic equipment, and other public-school activities. Or, they could receive the tax credit for costs associated with private school tuition or homeschooling. Would you support or oppose this proposal?”

• Strongly support … 42%

• Somewhat support … 22%

• TOTAL SUPPORT … 64%

• Somewhat oppose … 11%

• Strongly oppose … 17%

• TOTAL OPPOSE … 28%

• Don’t know/refused … 8%

Most homeschooling parents are going to homeschool with or without a tax break. But for some parents, a tax break like this could be what enables them to choose traditional homeschooling over a traditional public school or an online public school. Here's hoping this legislation receives due consideration.

[UPDATE: The legislation cleared its first hurdle.]

Teachers support school choice

Fascinating results from the latest EdChoice survey.

SoonerPoll: Oklahoma teachers favored Edmondson over Stitt three to one

"In a scientific online survey of Oklahoma teachers, chosen at random throughout the state, 63.7 percent would be voting for Edmondson and 21.6 percent for Stitt," SoonerPoll reports.

In the actual election, all voters (not just teachers) got to have their say. Kevin Stitt won 73 of 77 counties, racking up 54 percent of the statewide vote compared to Edmondson's 42 percent.

Support for ed choice grows

The most recent release of the annual Education Next poll "shows significant jumps in support for educational choice," the American Federation for Children points out.

Looking at the consistently worded questions over the years, the 2018 poll showed:

• Support for publicly-funded scholarships to private schools, also known as vouchers, increased from 45 percent last year to 54 percent this year. And 61 percent of parents support this policy, up from 52 percent last year. 

• Support for tax credit scholarships to private schools increased from 55 percent to 57 percent.

• Support for charter schools increased from 39 percent to 44 percent. 

• Notably, opposition to vouchers has decreased 13 percentage points since 2016, from 44 percent to 31 percent today. (Education Next's Paul Peterson noted last year that the PDK organization's surveys also showed a similar dramatic decrease in the opposition to vouchers: an 18 percentage point decrease over a four-year timeframe.)

• Hispanic support for vouchers increased dramatically, from 49 percent support last year to 67 percent this year. AFC's National School Choice Poll from January 2018 showed similar results with 72 percent of Hispanics supporting school choice. 

The AP story in The Norman Transcript is here.

One in three parents fear for their child's physical safety at school

"One in three parents fear for their child's physical safety at school, a sharp increase from 2013 when just 12% said they were fearful," according to the latest PDK poll.

Worthwhile reasons to move school elections

"Put simply, 'local control' of schools is as much myth as reality," The Oklahoman's editorial board notes today, "an argument bolstered by voting participation in school elections."

In a recent analysis of state boards and commissions, Byron Schlomach, economist and director of the conservative 1889 Institute, highlighted why this is problematic for good policy.

“Because of the outsized role that insiders have in the election of school board members, school boards at times appear to be more interested in serving the interest of the insiders rather than the interests of parents and taxpayers,” Schlomach wrote.

This was apparent when many school boards voted to close school for two weeks this year to let teachers engage in political lobbying, with pay. In many districts, that decision was made without consulting the thousands of student families who faced “great inconvenience and cost to parents and educational detriment to students,” Schlomach notes.

Why did school boards ignore parents? Because the school board members owed their election largely to school employees, not parents.

We have argued for moving school board elections to higher-turnout dates to increase citizen input. Otherwise, until school-election participation improves, lawmakers can legitimately claim to reflect the education views of their communities as much or more than do school board members, because a far higher share of local citizens voted for the legislator.

OCPA has written on this topic for years, and survey research from SoonerPoll (2015) and from Cor Strategies (2017) has found that Oklahomans favor moving local school board elections to November.

Districts' policies show need for school choice in Oklahoma

The Oklahoman's editorial board cites the latest polling data here.