Ryan Walters, the superintendent of Oklahoma schools who garnered national attention for wanting Bibles in the state’s public classrooms, will continue to push for tax credits for tuition-paying parents who want to send their children to a conservative online school, despite the school being deemed ineligible for the credits by the state’s tax commission.
American Virtual Academy is an online K-12 school that Walters’ department has said promotes “American principles rather than pushing a liberal agenda.” Walters had previously emailed “thousands of parents” in Oklahoma stating the tax credits would be available, according to Oklahoma’s News 9, but the school is not accredited in the state and therefore not qualified for tax credits. However, Walters is prepared to get his way by the time school starts.
“We will continue to work with the tax commission and American Virtual to have them approved by the start of the school year. Oklahoma is proud to remain the most school choice state in the country,” Walters said in a statement to NOTUS.
Representatives for the tax commission did not reply to questions from NOTUS.
It’s another example of Walters’ heavy advocacy for school choice, specifically for more access to religious and conservative schools.
Earlier this year, Walters pushed for the first publicly funded religious charter school, the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, and told NOTUS that Oklahoma was “leading the fight to tear down the left’s wall between church and state.” When a case involving the school reached the Supreme Court, Walters wrote an amicus brief in support of the school, but the Supreme Court swatted down the school’s chances of getting taxpayer dollars in May.
After the ruling, Walters said the fight wasn’t over, and Oklahoma would continue to be the state that advocates for school choice.
Walters announced his department’s partnership with the American Virtual Academy on July 22. The Arizona-based academy is affiliated with PragerU, a conservative media nonprofit, and StrongMind, an online homeschool curriculum developer that offers an artificial intelligence teaching assistant.
The Oklahoma Tax Commission denied the academy’s participation in the Parental Choice Tax Credit program, which provides an income tax refund of up to $7,500 for parents whose children go to eligible private schools.
Democratic state Sen. Mark Mann told NOTUS it wouldn’t be possible for Walters to get the tax credit approved in the two weeks left before the start of the school year, saying the tax commission was very clear in its decision.
“If you look at everything he’s pushed,” Mann said of Walters, “none of it ever comes to fruition.”
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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and Oklahoma Watch.