Arkansas just proved that when you trust parents instead of bureaucrats, kids learn—and the results are so inconvenient to the education establishment that you'll barely hear about them outside conservative media.
A new report shows students participating in Arkansas' universal school choice program scored above the national average in math and English after the state's Education Freedom Account overhaul. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Tuesday that the state saw a 20% increase in student performance across every single subject last year.
Here's what Arkansas did: eligible families receive roughly $8,000 per student each school year to put toward private school tuition, charter schools, or homeschooling. About 50,000 kids participated in the program last year and have signed up for the upcoming year. The money follows the student—not the system.
But here's the part the teachers unions don't want repeated: Arkansas didn't gut public schools to do it. The state simultaneously increased funding for public schools and raised salaries for more than 12,000 educators. Current teachers are guaranteed at least a $2,000 raise. The state also deployed "literacy coaches" to struggling schools. Sanders framed it as pairing choice with investment: "Arkansas is investing in education where it matters, and it's paying off, and we're seeing a big difference."
Both the New York Post and Fox News covered Sanders' appearance on "Fox & Friends" where she made the announcement. Neither outlet pressed for the underlying data or independent verification of the test score claims—both simply relayed the governor's figures. Neither mentioned the teachers unions that have fought school choice nationwide, nor the campaign dollars those unions pump into the politicians who block it in other states.
Sanders, citing her experience as a mother of three, stressed that "different kids need different environments" and that "parents should be allowed and empowered to figure out what that is."
That framing—parents as decision-makers, the state as servant—is precisely what the education lobby has spent decades fighting. The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers dump millions into Democratic campaigns and, through advertising spending, into the same corporate media outlets that would normally trumpet a 20% test score gain as front-page news. The silence from the establishment press isn't an accident. It's a business model.
The open question: if Arkansas can give families $8,000 per child, raise teacher pay, boost test scores 20%, and still clear the national average—what exactly are the other 49 states waiting for?
