Private school participation grows in Arkansas voucher program’s second year

The majority of private schools that participated in the inaugural year of Arkansas' voucher program have reapplied for the second year. They're joined by more than two dozen new applicants. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

More than two dozen private schools have applied as first-time participants in the second year of Arkansas’ school voucher program.

Created through the 2023 LEARNS Act , the Educational Freedom Account program allows state funds to be used for allowable expenses such as private school tuition. It’s being phased in with expanding eligibility criteria each year until it’s available to all Arkansas students in the 2025-2026 academic year.

As of the end of June, 27 new private schools applied for the second year of the EFA program, according to the Arkansas Department of Education. There is no application deadline for schools, however, most approval will occur prior to the start of the academic year in August, ADE spokeswoman Kimberly Mundell said. If schools are approved in the fall, payments will be prorated, she said.

Twenty-three schools have received conditional approval pending legislative approval of the final rules governing the EFA program, Mundell said. Three schools are pending review and one school, The Lab School of Memphis, was rejected because it’s located outside Arkansas.

Madonna Learning Center in Germantown, Tennessee, however, is permitted to participate for its second year because the LEARNS Act allows schools outside Arkansas that previously served Succeed Scholarship students to participate. The defunct program, which primarily supported students with disabilities, was absorbed into the EFA program.

Of the 100 schools approved to participate in the inaugural year of the program (not all participated), 86 have received preliminary approval and another seven are pending review, according to ADE. Two are closing — Avilla Christian Academy in Alexander and Cedar Heights Christian Academy in North Little Rock.

Instead of renewing, Lighthouse Homeschool Cooperative in Jonesboro is applying as an education service provider. Julian and Jaxon Academy in Little Rock was rejected for the upcoming year.

“From the very beginning of the EFA program, we have stated that participating private schools will be held accountable for providing a high-quality education to students, and we will investigate if bad actors are wasting taxpayers’ funds,” Mundell said. “During our ongoing review of participating schools this past school year, the department noticed some issues that resulted in a pause in payments to the entity. We have been in contact with school officials and will continue to investigate.”

First-time applicants

Christi Zumwalt, administrator for Garrett Memorial Christian School in Hope, said she was “a little apprehensive” about joining the EFA program its inaugural year and wanted to take time to learn more about it. Zumwalt said she wanted to be sure the school’s Biblical curriculum wouldn't be compromised before applying the second year.

“We wanted to be able to stay true to what we had been doing for these 24 years, but we also wanted to help our families out and provide Christian education to anyone, even those who might not be able to afford it,” she said.

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Tuition for the upcoming year at Garrett Memorial Christian School, which had nearly 170 students last year, will be $4,150 per child with discounted rates for siblings, according to Zumwalt and the application filed with ADE. There’s an additional $500-$550 in fees for enrollment, books, athletics and music.

For the 2024-2025 school year, EFA participants can receive up to $6,856 per student for educational expenses, an increase from about $6,600 last year.

Participation will be capped at around 14,000 students for the 2024-2025 academic year. Nearly 12,000 students have applied so far with 4,998 renewing students and 6,856 new applicants, according to ADE.

The department temporarily closed the student application portal in June to transition to a new vendor that will manage the program and it will reopen later this month, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette .

The private school portal has remained open for applicants like Michael Maloy, Thaden School’s head of school, who said it made sense for his Bentonville institution to join the EFA program this fall because more students will be eligible as the school expands to include kindergarten and first grade .

Inaugural year eligibility criteria included foster children, children of active duty military members and first-time kindergarteners, as well as students who have disabilities, are experiencing homelessness or are enrolled in an “F”-rated school. Eligibility in year two expands to include students at “D”-rated schools and children of veterans, military reservists or first responders.

The independent school, which Maloy said offers a “challenging and engaging curriculum” that aims to prepare students for college, work and life, opened in 2017 with support from the Walton Family Foundation. A longtime supporter of charter schools and “school choice,” the foundation has invested more than $1 billion traditional district, public charter and private schools “to support innovative organizations” that want to give families the option “to choose the best school for their child, regardless of their ZIP code,” according to the group’s website .

Thaden has historically offered grades 6-12, but plans to grow into a K-12 institution in the next few years. Tuition will range from $23,000 to $28,500 next year, and Maloy said they offer “a robust financial aid program” that includes indexed tuition, meaning families pay according to their income.

Participating in the EFA program will provide additional assistance to students’ families, more than half of whom receive some form of financial aid, he said.

“I think parents that have applied are very thankful to have the opportunity,” Maloy said. “The gift of a transformational education’s really important and being able to have help financing it I think is really important to parents.”

Accountability measures

While proponents praise the affordability aspect of the EFA program, critics argue it’s unfair because private schools receiving state funding don’t have to follow the same requirements as their public counterparts, such as admitting all students, providing transportation and administering certain standardized tests.

The LEARNS Act does require private schools to administer approved annual exams for EFA students.

For AR Kids, a ballot question committee, hopes to address the accountability issue through a proposed ballot initiative that, among other things, aims to hold private schools receiving state funding to the same standards as public schools. The group has until Friday to collect 90,704 signatures from at least 50 counties to qualify the measure for the 2024 ballot.

Opponents of the EFA program have also criticized it for drawing students away from public schools and taking with them much-needed funding, particularly for smaller, rural schools.

Zumwalt said she doesn’t view it as a competition with public schools “because we do something totally different.”

“We offer the academic rigor that the other schools do, but we also teach everything through a Biblical lens … my colleagues that are in public schools, I don’t feel like I’m competing with them and I’ve told them that we’re not trying to take your students, we just want to be able to offer what we have to students who want it,” she said.

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Curriculum flexibility is appealing to Marcus Baskerville, who wants to open a Little Rock private school that offers an AI-driven curriculum with Christian components. The Texas-based education administrator hopes to open the Baskerville Leadership Academy in Little Rock for the 2025-2026 academic year and said he’s applying for the EFA program now so he’ll already be in the system.

To qualify for the EFA program, schools that have not been in operation for at least one school year must provide a statement by a certified public accountant that the school is insured and has sufficient capital or credit to operate in the upcoming school year and/or file with ADE a surety bond or letter of credit for the amount equal to the account funds needed by the school for any quarter.

Baskerville launched his nonprofit, Baskerville Squared, in 2020 after noticing a decline in students coming to school during the pandemic. He wanted more flexibility to try creative curriculums, which he said private schools provide.

“You’re afforded that autonomy to, if something’s not working, you can change aggressively to help that student out to make sure something’s going to work … to make sure they’re all getting the education that they need as opposed to a few of them and a majority of them not getting it,” he said.

Baskerville initially explored opening charter schools in Arkansas , Mississippi and Alabama . He later realized it would be easier to open a private school and learning about the EFA program solidified his plans to do so.

“We’re not here to take away from public schools or charter schools,” Baskerville said. “We’re here to be a help to those areas because parents want an affordable option that’s alternative, and if you’re not getting it from public or charter and [private’s] giving that affordability, you shouldn’t see it as a negative thing.”

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