As part of the series on how taxpayer-funded school vouchers are being used, Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen reported for ProPublica and the Arkansas Times on how the voucher program in Arkansas has led to a private school boom, with some disturbing results.
Before Arkansas’ LEARNS Act passed in 2023, creating its voucher-style program, state schools secretary Jacob Oliva promised that “there is going to be accountability for the schools that participate.”
But the oversight role his department gave itself was related primarily to finances. The department has the power to conduct random financial audits of private schools, mandate that the schools report their tuition and fees and require schools to measure student achievement with tests of their choosing, but little else.
Under pressure to tweak the rules this spring, the department again declined to monitor school quality and tinkered only with how parents can use the funds on items other than tuition, banning them from paying for travel sports teams, for instance. Even that was controversial; some lawmakers argued there should be less government interference. They argue the onus is on parents to decide whether their children are safe and learning, and if they’re not, the families can go somewhere else.
This upcoming school year, Arkansas expects that nearly 55,000 students will use their Education Freedom Accounts for tuition and other expenses.
With most students getting about $7,000 each, the program cost about $310 million in taxpayer funds this past school year. Most of the students who used EFA money in Arkansas the prior year were already attending private school or being homeschooled, or were just starting kindergarten. Only 12% of participants reported that they’d previously attended a public school.
When the program began, the department set up a hotline and an email address for people to report suspected fraud or misuse of the EFA funds. About a dozen emails raised concerns about student well-being.
But several complainants told ProPublica that they did not hear from state officials after sharing their concerns. One teacher said she got no response after she emailed in April that students who transferred to her school had been deprived of a “basic education” at the microschool they previously attended, according to state records. She said first and second graders reported that they had spent the majority of their time playing.