Tax credit “scholarships” are vouchers, and in state after state, the low-income kids are just used to get the bill passed, but as they grow, they are most used by higher income families. We are currently fighting another expansion of the Kansas tax credit “scholarship” which would get rid of the income cap and public school attendance requirements for certain groups of students in our state. Here’s the latest from Oklahoma.
“Lawmakers swore until they were blue in the face that the program, which allows the Oklahoma Tax Commission to issue individuals checks ranging from $5,000 to $7,500, would expand school choice for low-income children who were trapped in failing schools…Over 45% of the ‘tax credits’ awarded in the spring 2025 semester went to recipients in households that earned more than $150,000 a year, according to an analysis quietly published by the Oklahoma Tax Commission last month.
“That same analysis revealed that we forked out $19.3 million to cover the spring private school costs for over 7,700 recipients whose households made over $250,000 a year. Just a little more than a quarter of the roughly 30,000 recipients came from [the under $75,000] income bracket, despite half the workers in our state making less than $57,000 a year…
“Legislators would have you forget that they want to use public money to continue to subsidize the costs of a small subset of rich children whose parents have fled the public school system that 700,000 children rely on. The exodus further exacerbates the gap between the haves and have nots.
“To further rub salt in the wound, many private schools used the new ‘tax credit’ to raise tuition. An Oklahoma Watch analysis found that about 12% of 171 participating private schools capped tuition rates near $7,500, the max a family can receive. Some schools raised tuition rates 100%.”
Originally posted to Facebook 3/2/2025.