Arkansas has been a national leader on education freedom, but a bill before the state legislature would be a step in the wrong direction.
In 2023, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, signed into law the Arkansas LEARNS initiative, an ambitious education reform package that expanded education choice, restructured teacher compensation to pay more for performance, prohibited Arkansas public schools from indoctrinating students, and more. Following these reforms, Arkansas moved up from No. 13 to No. 4 in the nation on The Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card.
Underlying these reforms was a philosophical approach to education that trusts parents over bureaucrats. As explained in the Phoenix Declaration, the “highest form of accountability is when schools are answerable directly to well-informed parents.” By contrast, the policies proposed in…
