House Bill 3398 is a “pro-voucher” bill, an expanded version of the state of Arizona’s “pro-voucher” bill, which was originally designed for low income families and families with special needs children.


Oklahoma’s HB 3398 stipulates that parents can start tax-free savings accounts earmarked for educational expenses. These tax-free savings accounts would be funded by taking money away from public schools through a complicated system involving computation of student grade level and family income. The bill states that a percentage between 30-90% would be “multiplied by total State Aid factors multiplied by the Grave Level Weight and the Student Category Weights that would be generated by that student for the applicable schools year” (p. 10).



A family of four with an income of $87,136 or less would be eligible for the program, which means most Oklahoma families would be eligible. The 2012 median household income in Oklahoma was $44,891.



Parents could use the money to send children to religious schools or virtual schools, pay for tutors, pay for tests, or pay for “educational therapy.”



The bill would also create a new bureaucracy to track, maintain, and deliver the vouchers. This new bureaucracy would be funded by “an amount equal to five percent of the total amount set aside for the Program for administrative services” (p. 11).