The school voucher program in Arkansas is a program that help families to be able to afford to send their kids to participating private schools.
However their funding is different.
The Arkansas school vouchers are funded through state funding formulas, whereas tax-credit scholarships are funded by private donations to scholarship-granting organizations.
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.
Vouchers mostly fund students who are already attending private school, and wealthy families are overwhelmingly the recipients of school voucher tax credits—they can even use tax shelters to profit from “donations” to voucher organizations.
School vouchers describe public funds that families can use at private schools of their choice, including those that are religious, to subsidize the cost of student tuition.
The disadvantages of school vouchers are.
Takes money away from public schools.
Decrease in services available to public school children.
Public funds going to perochial schools.
Vouchers treat learning like a commodity, and a free market doesn't always work in a interest of the consumer.