In recent years, a significant number of states, including Oklahoma, have enacted statewide school-choice programs that help families pay for private-school tuition.
A new national poll shows that state legislators who support those programs are preferred over school-choice opponents by a margin of nearly three to one.
“Every state will have school choice soon, and as these results show, that can’t happen soon enough. Parents are the interest group to which politicians at all levels must respond or face political consequences,” said Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, which commissioned the poll. “As the latest scores from the Nation’s Report Card prove, our nation’s education system is in an undeclared state of emergency and in desperate need of meaningful competition and ways out for students who need it. Thanks to the new federal scholarship tax credit signed into law in July, every state has the opportunity to expand school choice, and governors should act swiftly to opt in as soon as possible.”
In a head-to-head race for a state legislative seat, the poll showed that 57 percent of voters would support a candidate who supports school choice “because it empowers parents to have more control over what their children are learning and choose the best school for their child, regardless of where they live.”
Only 20 percent of voters said they would oppose a legislative candidate who supports school choice, based on the argument that “there are sufficient education options and school choice cuts money from already underfunded public schools, hurting our local communities, and causing property taxes to rise.”
Republican voters were particularly supportive of school-choice candidates, preferring them by a margin of 70 percent to 12 percent. But even among Democrats, voters preferred the school-choice candidate over the school-choice opponent by a margin of 47 percent to 29 percent. Among independents, 51 percent preferred the school-choice supporter and 19 percent opposed.
Parents with children in public schools sided with the pro-school choice candidate by a margin of 55 percent to 27 percent.
One provision of the “one big beautiful bill” passed by Congress in July provided a federal tax credit to those who donate to nonprofit K-12 educational scholarship-granting organizations. However, states must proactively opt in for citizens to receive the tax break.
When voters were asked if they support the federal scholarship tax credit, 58 percent said they were in favor of it, compared to just 22 percent opposed. The poll found 66 percent of parents were in favor.
3D Strategic Research surveyed 1,000 registered voters for the American Federation for Children from September 6-11, 2025, with an oversample of 300 parents with kids under 18 (485 parents total). The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.10% for all voters and +/- 4.45% for parents.
State-level polling has generated similar results in Oklahoma.
A rolling 12-month survey sponsored by EdChoice and developed in cooperation with Morning Consult currently shows that 62 percent of Oklahoma adults, and 74 percent of school parents, support school vouchers that take “tax dollars currently allocated to a school district” and instead allocate those funds to parents “to pay partial or full tuition” for their child’s private school education.
Oklahoma is a national leader in school-choice opportunities.
The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program provides refundable tax credits to Oklahoma families to help pay private-school tuition, with the largest tax credits going to families with the lowest incomes. Any family in Oklahoma is eligible, although the program is capped at $250 million in credits each year.
The Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program has five income brackets: Families earning up to $75,000 can receive a $7,500 per-child refundable tax credit; those earning $75,001 to $150,000 get a credit of $7,000 per child; families with income between $150,001 and $225,000 qualify for a $6,500 credit; those earning $225,001 to $250,000 receive a $6,000 credit; and those earning $250,001 and up qualify for a credit of $5,000 per child.
By: Ray Carter