This story was first published by Facing South. The Arkansas legislature's first foray into education vouchers was in 2015, when it created the state-funded Succeed Scholarship for children with disabilities. Launched the following year, the program currently gives parents nearly…
As expected, the tug of war between school choice advocates and defenders of traditional public schools played out in Arkansas’s 91st General Assembly, which concluded its flurry of lawmaking last week.
The Joint Budget Committee adopted an amendment last week to expand the appropriation for a special needs voucher program. An earlier version of the appropriation bill for the state Department of Education called for $800,000 to fund the Succeed Scholarship program for the 2017-18 school year, the same amount of money for the program that was appropriated in the 2016 fiscal session of the General Assembly. The amended version increases the appropriation to $1.3 million.
A bill that would expand a special-needs education voucher program to include foster children passed on a voice vote with some dissent in the Senate Education Committee Wednesday.
A bill that would expand a special-needs education voucher program to include foster children passed in a 82-3 vote in the House Monday.
A bill that would establish education savings accounts to be used at parents' discretion to fund private school and other education costs passed in the House Education Committee Thursday.
A bill that would expand a special-needs education voucher program to include foster children passed on a voice vote with some dissent in the House Education Committee Wednesday.
A bill that would allow superintendents to waive the requirement that a student attend public school for a year before being eligible to participate in a special-needs education voucher program passed 69-7 in the House Wednesday.
A bill that would expand the number of private schools eligible to participate in a special-needs education voucher program passed on a voice vote with no dissent in the House Education Committee Thursday.
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