Senate Democratic leader John Sparks wants to know what kind of fiscal impact school vouchers, or education savings accounts, would have on Oklahoma schools. So, he filed a formal request for that information on Monday.
Vouchers, or education savings accounts, are very controversial because they allow parents to use state tax dollars on private school tuition-reducing state funds for public school.
The House of Representatives recently released a report saying vouchers would have no impact on the state’s budget. But Sparks says that is misleading. He wants to know what the impact would be on school’s budgets, not the state.
“What I want to know is, what kind of impact will SB 609 and HB 2949 have on our schools directly? How much money do we know will be diverted away from Oklahoma’s public schools if these voucher bills pass the legislature and are implemented in our schools?”
In 2015, the State Department of Education estimated that education savings accounts would take about 900 million dollars away from schools.
There are two active voucher bills in the Oklahoma legislature, and lawmakers are set to vote on them soon. Sparks says he wants this information before he votes.
“We need to know what implementation of these bills will mean for our teachers, our administrators, and Oklahoma’s families.”
