Arkansas handed parents something government rarely gives up willingly: control. The Arkansas LEARNS Act created Education Freedom Accounts, raised starting teacher pay, expanded literacy programs, and phased school choice into universal eligibility for the 2025-26 school year.
The early results have been encouraging. During 2024-25, 14,256 students used the accounts, up 157% from the program's first year. About 76% attended participating private schools, while 24% used approved funds for homeschooling. Another 91% stayed with the program for the following school year. From the Arkansas Advocate:
The 2025-2026 academic year is the third time students have taken a new annual exam developed by state education officials called the Arkansas Teaching, Learning and Assessment System, or ATLAS.
Arkansas students’ proficiency increased across every major content area between 2024 and 2026, with mathematics increasing from 36.4% to 44.2%, science from 35.6% to 44% and English language arts from 33.8% to 39.5%, according to an executive summary. Proficiency overall increased from 36.9% last year to 42.2% this year.
The number of students performing at the lowest level decreased across all subjects, with 23.1% scoring at Level 1 this year compared to 27.3% last year.
Full 2025-2026 growth scores and school ratings will be released in the fall, according to a news release.
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday the scores demonstrate the success of the LEARNS Act, a 2023 law that made sweeping changes to the state’s education system, including creating a school voucher program.
“Since LEARNS went into effect, 44,000 more kids are learning at or above proficiency,” Sanders said at a news conference. “Improving a single kid’s education journey can be life-changing, and Arkansas just did that for 44,000 of them.”
Academic results gave parents more reason to keep choosing. Students with valid national percentile scores ranked at the 57th percentile in math and the 59th percentile in English language arts.
Private-school participants reached the 55th percentile in math and the 57th in English. Homeschooled students reached the 63rd percentile in math and the 68th in English.
Those figures came from the 2024-25 school year, before universal eligibility began. They don't prove the later universal expansion caused the scores. The students also took several approved national tests, and the analysis didn't control for family income.
Such limits should shape the claim without erasing the results: students using Arkansas school choice performed above the national midpoint.
Meanwhile, Arkansas public schools also improved. From 2024 to 2026, statewide proficiency rose from 36.4% to 44.2% in math, 35.6% to 44% in science, and 33.8% to 39.5% in English language arts.
Choice didn't require Arkansas to abandon public schools. The state raised starting teaching pay to $50,000, provided raises for more than 12,000 teachers, and sent literacy coaches into struggling schools.
Sanders put the principle as plainly as can be: “We are empowering parents to make the best decisions about where and how their kids can be educated.”
Her words strike at the oldest weakness in centralized education. The people who know a child best often hold the least power once school bureaucracy takes over.
Teachers' unions may represent their members. They shouldn't outrank mothers and fathers when deciding where a child learns, which values guide the classroom, or whether a school is meeting that child's needs.
A parent shouldn't need a union's permission, a district's blessing, or enough money to pay twice before leaving a failing arrangement.
I'm conservative on life and family, but my instincts turn libertarian when government starts dictating choices people can make for themselves. Education sits near the center of that concern because lost school years can't be returned.
A child trapped for three years in the wrong classroom doesn't get those years back after adults finish defending the system.
Choice also changes the balance of power. Schools must persuade families to stay rather than rely on a ZIP code and guaranteed funding. Parents gain leverage without running for a school board, hiring a lawyer, or begging an administrator for relief.
Arkansas hasn't completed the experiment, and future reports need cleaner comparisons. Still, the feared collapse hasn't arrived. Participation surged, families stayed, school-choice students scored above the national midpoint, and public-school proficiency rose alongside the reform.
Government works best when it protects freedom rather than replacing judgment. Arkansas put parents ahead of the education establishment, and their children are already giving the state good reasons to continue.
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