HSOK is in full support of these two bills, and we hope you will contact your legislators in favor of them. These bills remove the “school choice” voucher system in Oklahoma as well as the homeschool tax credit.
Homeschool Oklahoma does not agree with taking state money to fund homeschooling. As we have stated and defended on many occasions, even the option of having “free money” is a danger to homeschooling families in the state, whether they take the money or not. These bills remove this danger for homeschooling families.
Unfortunately these bills do not separate private schooling and homeschooling. They advocate for the repeal of the entire Parental Choice Tax Credit which applies to both family groups. Homeschool Oklahoma has no official position regarding private school voucher programs, either for or against them. Our concern as an organization is solely on protecting the freedoms of homeschooling families. Because legislators would not listen to our requests to have the homeschool tax credit repealed as a line item, we have no other choice than to support this larger bill which includes the changes which are important for our community.
Additionally, the language in the homeschool tax credit is already being used as a pattern for “giving free stuff to homeschoolers.” Prior to this legislative session, Homeschool Oklahoma identified several bills that were using the language of the homeschool tax credit as a foundational pattern to give special perks to homeschool students. Getting rid of the homeschool tax credit will help not only prevent our community from being corrupted by government funding, but will remove this language from our law so that other legislators will not have it as a pattern for future bills.
We are also aware that the authors of these bills are probably not themselves personally aligned with the homeschooling community and our values. However, we believe that the importance of this legislation requires us to support these bills.
