![Despite public statements that Arkansas school vouchers would lift up low-income students from failing schools, an EFA Transparency Report [pg. 8], released on September 20, 2023, just six months after Gov. Sanders signed the LEARNS Act, concluded that 95% of participating students, out of 4,795 in year one, had not attended public schools the previous year.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/28dfd73/2147483647/strip/true/crop/948x541+0+0/resize/840x480!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F35%2Ff7%2F0094762c4ab3bab47206a282aab5%2Fvouchers-boy-alone-dark-hallway-photo-10-16-25.png)
As Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders proudly signed the Arkansas LEARNS Act on March 8, 2023, she declared a primary goal of the sweeping legislation: “We’ve seen how the status quo condemns Arkansans to a lifetime of poverty, and we’re tired of sitting at the bottom of national education rankings.”
The LEARNS Act led to the creation of the Arkansas Education Freedom Account program (EFA), better known by many simply as school vouchers. And for the first year, this program now allows all Arkansas parents to qualify for roughly $6,800 in public money scholarships to private school and homeschool families to pay the cost of tuition and fees for their children. That helps explain the huge gulf between the enormous number of applicants this year compared to the 14,000 applicants last year.
A legally-mandated annual report just came out October 3, 2025, assessing years one and two in Arkansas’ school voucher program. That report explained, among other things, that more than 50,000 applicants have applied for the Arkansas EFA school choice voucher program in this third year. Perhaps the most glaring statistic from the report, at least to some observers, is the figure of 12%. That is the percentage of public school students in Arkansas who had actually made the switch in year two through the voucher program, after attending public schools the previous school year. That was actually a 6% drop from year one, when 18% of public school students opted for the voucher program. Or, thought of another way, 88% of Arkansas’ school choice voucher recipients in the last school year [2024-25] did not come from public schools. Researchers say enrollees attended 126 different private schools statewide last year, while 3,000 students had been homeschooled. Critics are quick to point out that the high number of students who had not attended public schools the prior year runs counter to the entire notion about the urgent effort underway to help lift up those in failing schools, and thus presumably give them access to better educational opportunities.
In an EFA Transparency Report [pg. 8], released on September 20, 2023, just six months after Gov. Sanders signed the LEARNS Act, the report concluded that 95% of participating students, out of 4,795 in year one, had not attended public schools the previous year. Voucher supporters say this scholarship does help even the small percentage of students in failing public schools who otherwise could not afford a private school option to attain a better education and potentially better prospects later in life.
As Little Rock Public Radio reports, the annual report also boasts high satisfaction ratings from parents and high retention rates in the second year. It also says EFA beneficiaries scored slightly higher on standardized tests compared to national averages, though the EFA program allows students to choose which standardized test to take.
The National Education Association (NEA) has repeatedly described school vouchers as a “catastrophic Failure.” The NEA says there is overwhelming evidence showing voucher programs strip funds away from public schools, lack fiscal and academic accountability, and are used primarily by families with children already in private school.
