State Capitol Week in Review

In 2006 I was elected as a Republican to the Arkansas House of Representatives, which at that time was controlled by a super majority of Democrats, so next year will mark two decades since I was first elected to public office.
A lot has changed since 2006, besides the fact that my hair turned gray. In fact, I wonder if the changes I’ve seen are the reason my hair turned gray.
In 2006 my core Republican beliefs could be summarized as upholding freedom with responsibility, accountability to taxpayers and transparency in the spending of tax dollars. They’re still my core principles.
Back then I advocated for more choice in public education. I wanted parents to have options besides the entrenched establishment that decided where children attend school, what courses they study and who has the qualifications to teach. Then as now I believe that when parents have options, education must be more responsible, accountable and transparent.
In 2006 any discussion about school choice was revolutionary. But fast forward to today, when school choice options are light years beyond anything we considered in 2006.
So when the governor proposed the LEARNS Act in 2023, I was pleasantly interested. But I was disappointed after the details came to light.
For one thing the governor, her cabinet and her legislative allies had to admit that they didn’t know how to pay for LEARNS in future years. That was reason enough for me to not vote for it. It is fiscally irresponsible to start any program without a sustainable plan to pay for it. It’s the opposite of fiscal conservatism.
Recent events prove the wisdom of being truly conservative and the foolishness of implementing a massive spending program without any plan to pay for it. The Legislative Council, with the backing of the governor, withdrew $90 million from a reserve account to pay for ongoing costs of the LEARNS Act, specifically for vouchers known as Education Freedom Accounts. That’s the equivalent of dipping into your savings account to make a car note. It’s unsustainable.

Another problem with LEARNS is the lack of testing required of students or the private schools they attend. Public schools and their students undergo frequent testing. So the basic lack of fairness in LEARNS is real and it’s wrong.
The lack of testing is a lack of transparency in how Education Freedom Accounts are spent. How on earth can it be fiscally responsible to not know how public tax dollars are spent?
My proposal is to change the program so it’s fiscally responsible and transparent. Students and the private schools they attend would not receive public tax dollars until they had undergone pre-testing. State payments into Education Freedom Accounts would be made only after the student had passed standardized academic tests.
Every year Education Freedom Accounts receive hundreds of millions of tax dollars, yet it’s a program with accountability and oversight issues.
They should comply with the same transparency laws that public schools do.
Accountability, transparency and oversight are the foundations of fiscal responsibility. They protect taxpayers, and without them government is vulnerable to corruption and neglect.
The current LEARNS Act is fiscally irresponsible, but we can make education better if we add the protection of taxpayers embodied in the core principles of accountability, transparency and fairness.