Participation in Arkansas’ school voucher program surges 157%

Students who entered Arkansas’ school voucher program rocketed by 157% in its second year, a new report shows.

Researchers from the University of Arkansas reported Tuesday that 14,256 students received state tax dollars to spend on private schools and other alternatives to public education during the 2024-25 academic year.

That’s up from 5,548 students who participated in the Education Freedom Accounts program during the 2023-24 term. The report noted that 91% of recipients have reenrolled for the current academic year as the program expands to reach nearly 50,000 students statewide.

“Arkansas’ program is providing families meaningful educational options, particularly for the most vulnerable,” co-author Patrick Wolf, a University of Arkansas education reform professor, said in an email.

Mr. Wolf’s report noted that students in the program last year tested at the 57th national percentile in math and 59th in English language arts.

In 2023, Arkansas Republicans included the voucher program in a sweeping overhaul of the state’s K-12 education system that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law.

It’s letting qualifying students receive up to $6,994 a year for tuition, books and other expenses at the schools of their choice.

According to Private School Review, the average private school tuition in Arkansas is $10,187 per year this fall.

In its first two years, Arkansas capped program participation at 1.5% and 3% of its total public school enrollment, or about 7,100 and 14,000 students, respectively.

This week’s report estimated that the Arkansas Education Department approved nearly 47,000 students, or 10% of K-12 students in the state, to receive program money in 2025-26.

Ashley Rogers Berner, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, said the report confirms that the Arkansas program has been “mostly a positive thing.”

“The program helps families exercise agency over their children’s education, while requiring public reporting of academic outcomes,” Ms. Berner, who wasn’t involved in the report, said in an email. “This ‘choice plus academic accountability’ comports with the majority of school systems around the world.”

The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s two largest teachers unions, have long opposed vouchers as a scheme to weaken funding for public schools.

School choice advocates insist that the tide of public opinion has turned against the unions.

Catholic schools and homeschooling groups nationwide experienced record enrollment growth during pandemic lockdowns of public school campuses.

The American Federation for Children, a leading school choice advocacy group, reported this week that 73% of registered voters responding to a recent survey agreed that “school choice should be open to all families.”

Only 20% of the 1,000 voters who participated in the Sept. 6-11 poll said they would vote for “an anti-school choice candidate over a pro-school choice candidate” for their state legislatures.

Patrick Graff, the federation’s director of legislative policy, called the 92-page report from the University of Arkansas “a treasure trove” of reasons to help families pay for alternative schooling.

“It finds rapid student growth, high program retention rates, and academic outcomes that outpace the national average, especially among homeschool students,” Mr. Graff said in an email. “Clearly, parents are seeking other options, and the Arkansas EFA is delivering.”

According to the University of Arkansas report, 10,834, or 76%, of all students who received EFA funds in 2024-25 spent them at 126 private schools. An additional 3,442 students spent them on homeschooling costs.

Overall, the program disbursed $93.8 million, or 2.6% of Arkansas’s K-12 education budget, despite enrolling 3% of the state’s students through the EFA program.

Among the students receiving funding, the report found that 36% had a disability, more than twice the rate of Arkansas public schools.

“It dispels a lot of myths of these kinds of programs,” said Mr. Wolf, the report’s co-author.