Representative Jacob Rosecrants Files Bill To Force Accountability For Education Tax Credit Dollars

1.16.24 – Jenni White

File under ROPEtoldyaso. In fact, thanks to this, ROPE and homeschoolers across Oklahoma will take the prize for “prophets of the year” already for 2024.

Yesterday, Oklahoma’s Channel 9, interviewed Representative Jacob Rosecrants who had the following to say about Oklahoma’s Parental Tax Credit for private school tuition.

Woah… Weird… Sounds exactly like what we’ve been saying could happen since nearly the beginning of the “Parental Choice” movement, right? 

Yes. All one has to do is search this site to find out how many articles have been devoted to attempting to educate people about this specific issue.

“But Jenni, Rosecrants is a DEMOCRAT! This will NEVER happen here!”

Well picture me as Santa Clause in this quote from the movie Elf:

I’ve watched the legislature for nearly 15 years now and I’ve seen Republicans do some super UNRepublican stuff – the biggest example here being jumping on the Common Core bandwagon, where a majority of Oklahoma Republicans wanted a national curricula for Oklahoma kids until we began going to them individually with facts that showed how harmful such a program would be (and now we know – for the states who used it – how harmful it was). 

In fact, one would have HOPED that Republicans – people whose platform indicates them to be bastions of smaller government and private enterprise over public control – would have spotted the whole tax credit/VOUCHER scheme from a mile off. Yet, how can we forget that there wasn’t a single Republican lawmaker who voted AGAINST the tax credit/VOUCHER – scheme last session. Not one. Here are the votes for the HOUSE. Here are the votes for the Senate so you can check me up on that.

So ask yourself…how did not a single Republican Senator or House member think it wouldn’t be problematic to give private schools public tax dollars? 

Frankly, that’s a great question, and if we can’t answer that question, how in the world could we trust our legislature not to simply double-down on the whole thing and then turn around and tell us it’s a good thing – which is what they did with the tax credit/VOUCHER scheme in the first place.

“This is a tax credit, not a voucher”, they said. 

“This is to help underserved/underrepresented kids”, they said.

Already, however – not even two months into the program – nearly every Republican talking point for the program has been debunked.

Not only is the program over budget 4 million dollars by using the globalist data collecting vendor MERITS INC. to administrate the program instead of the Oklahoma Tax Commission as stated in the bill, but there’s more.

In this video, I make the point that out of the 4 income categories proposed for the “tax credit”, only the upper two income categories are a true tax credit – and that’s only for one child – the lower 2 income categories are 100% VOUCHERS. So it’s just a boldfaced lie to have sold the program as a tax credit right there. Why were none of the Republicans crunching the numbers to find this out for themselves? This was easy info to find.

Then we have the idea that it’s to help disadvantaged kids/families.

According to Carmen Forman at the Oklahoma Voice:

The Tax Commission has received more than 30,000 applications for the tax credits approved by the GOP-led Oklahoma Legislature last year. About 45% are from priority applicants and 55% are from families earning more than $150,000 annually, Haxton said.

So, there you go. If you have a household income of $150k and you can’t put your own kids in private schools, OTHER PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE SENDING YOUR KIDS TO PRIVATE SCHOOL FOR YOU. That’s 100% socialism – especially when I just showed that you don’t even get ONE KID as a tax credit at that level. Our household is near that income level and we had one kid at Oklahoma Christian School for two years, scrimping and saving and homeschooling the others. Why should I pay for YOUR kid when you didn’t pay for mine?

Meanwhile, back in Arizona, School Choice Inc’s MODEL for school ‘choice’ legislation – including full universal vouchers like Oklahoma’s Governor signed into law just last year – Democrat Governor “Katie Hobbs unveils plan to rein in Arizona school voucher program“. Yup, regulation of private schools on even a WORSE level than Rep. Jacob Rosecrants has suggested, including the following:

• A requirement that private schools provide the accommodations and services in a disabled student’s Individualized Learning Plan or Section 504 Plan.
• Require manual approval of any ESA purchase over $500. That should ensure the taxpayer dollars that fund ESAs are spent on academic purposes, Hobbs said. She also called for an end to ESA awards for items such as ski passes and luxury car driving lessons, although it’s unclear how those “luxury” items would be defined. 
• Give the state Auditor General authority to review and report on how ESA money is spent by private schools. This is a standard practice for Arizona’s public schools.

So, how in the world did a REAL threat that private schools be regulated for purposes of accountability and essentially turned into public schools over a tax credit bill rear its ugly head? How does this happen in Oklahoma? Aren’t we smarter than that? 

Whelp…NO. According to EdWeek, Oklahoma was 49th in education in 2021. So, maybe we aught to be putting more effort into MAKING public schools actually educate kids instead of growing government to the point that it becomes the blob that ate private schools.