Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the March 8, 2023, signing of the Arkansas LEARNS Act. The wide-ranging law created a statewide minimum teacher salary of $50,000 and a school voucher program, among other things. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)
Gov. Sarah Sanders’ school vouchers program has taught us once again a self-evident lesson about human nature: Free money is popular.
For the upcoming school year, all parents in Arkansas qualify for about $6,800 in state subsidies for private school tuition or homeschool expenses, no matter how much money they make or the test results of the public schools their children attend. So not surprisingly, as of this writing, 45,500 applicants have stepped up to the trough, blowing through not only the $187 million legislators appropriated for the program in the state budget but another $90 million in reserve funds set aside just in case the appropriation ran out…