A winner for inner-city students
A winner for inner-city students

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By State Sen. James Williamson

Published: April 16, 2008

What would you think about a program that would invest an additional $2.5 million targeted at the education of low-income students in "high-risk” schools, without increasing taxes and without taking any money from the funding of other important programs?

Could you support such a program if it went even further and gave the parents of those students the right to choose which school their child attended?

These are the two main goals of the New Hope Scholarship Program.

There are almost 7,000 students who attend schools that have been on the "needs improvement” list for more than three years in Tulsa and Oklahoma City school districts. To be on this list for just one year, the school has to fall short of meeting the performance goals set by the state in math achievement, reading/language arts achievement, levels of student participation in testing and graduation.

Again, to be eligible, the students would have to be at a school that fell short of these educational goals for three or more years.

This scholarship program gives these children and their parents new hope. The bill provides for privately funded scholarships to be available for the parents of these children to send their children to alternative private schools.

Some will ask why there is a need for this legislation. The reason is simple: The bill provides a funding mechanism for a 50 percent tax credit to anyone who contributes to the New Hope Scholarship Organizations. If an individual or a corporation contributes $10,000 to a New Hope Scholarship Organization, the contributor can receive a $5,000 credit against the contributor's tax liability to the state. This credit is limited statewide to a maximum of $2.5 million annually.

It's a two-for-one deal. Two dollars of education for low-income students for every one dollar of effect on the state budget. Another positive is that under the provisions of the bill, the school that needs improvement would end up having more money per pupil to improve the education for the remaining students. It's a win-win program!

So where is the opposition? It lies with the public education lobby, which opposes any solution for education that doesn't solely involve more money to public education. Their biggest argument opposing the bill is that it "cherry picks” only the best students from the low-income families and leaves the rest behind. This simply is not true. The current version of the bill clearly indicates that the students are chosen at random and everyone who applies has an equal opportunity at the scholarship.

I believe it's time we have the courage to think outside of the box to provide hope to the parents of these low-income children in the inter-city schools in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Williamson, R-Tulsa, represents District 35 in the Oklahoma Senate.

Related Topics: Public Finance, Economic Issues, Taxes, Poverty