For years, I have been writing about the decline of public education in the United States. The political power of teachers’ unions led to bloated budgets as schools pursued ideological agendas over educational advancements. Despite massive budgets, scores of students in major cities have continued to plummet or remain at the same dismal levels. Now, Arkansas has shown what is possible if officials put education first. Scores in the state have soared after the implementation of reforms that many of us have advocated for years. It also shows that state governments, not the federal government, are critical to reversing our slide in educational performance as the Administration moves toward eliminating the Department of Education.
Arkansas implemented a new program and testing protocol called the Arkansas Teaching, Learning, and Assessment System, or ATLAS with a mix of higher pay for teachers, performance-based bonuses, and a voucher system for families.
The result has been increasing proficiency scores across every major area between 2024 and 2026, with mathematics increasing from 36.4% to 44.2%, science from 35.6% to 44% and English language arts from 33.8% to 39.5%. Overall proficiency overall increased from 36.9% last year to 42.2% in 2026
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders heralded the success of the LEARNS Act, a 2023 law that made sweeping changes to the state’s education system.
The use of the voucher system has been fiercely opposed by the teachers’ unions. The decline of our educational standards have led me to change my view of vouchers.
I was long skeptical of voucher systems because of that commitment to public education. Decades ago, my parents helped create an organization to stem the exodus of families from public schools and to reinforce academic standards in the Chicago Public School system. They convinced more families to remain in the system because they believed (as I do) that public schools can play a critical role in shaping citizens through diverse, shared experiences.
Watching the continued decline in scores, my views on vouchers changed. In my view, teacher unions and administrators are destroying public education in America. They are treating families as captive audiences while infusing education with social and political agendas.
That view was captured in the comment of Iowa school board member Rachel Wall, who said: “The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”
State Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Wis.) tweeted: “If parents want to ‘have a say’ in their child’s education, they should home school or pay for private school tuition out of their family budget.”
That is precisely what families are asking to do through voucher systems.
In the meantime, the educational activists continue to prevail with Democratic leaders. This week, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (who ran on being a moderate) continued her radical shift to the left with the appointment of a LGBTQ activist who pushed back against efforts to bar biological males from girls’ bathrooms to a state advisory board.
In the meantime, the state boards have continued to undermine gifted and talented programs and other educational advancements despite poor testing results.
The only way to break this decades-long cycle of failure, in my opinion, is to give families alternatives by allowing them to send their children to schools with core educational (as opposed to advocacy) priorities.
Arkansas shows what can be done by focusing on creating choices and incentives for excellence in education.
In the meantime, teachers’ unions continue to spend wildly to support Democratic politicians who, in turn, yield to their every demand for pension increases and other matters. The unions have become the piggy bank for Democratic candidates, spending an estimated $1 billion on such campaigns over the last 10 years. In cities like Chicago, teachers successfully demanded paid time off and buses to join protests against Trump and ICE, declaring that “civic action … requires more than textbooks.”
If you want to understand the priorities of the unions, just watch one of NEA head Becky Pringle’s unhinged speeches:
Her declarations that the union will “win all of the things” clearly did not include educational improvements for students.
In a prior column, I was particularly moved by the frustration of a mother in Baltimore who complained that her son was in the top half of his class despite failing all but three of his classes. Graduating students without proficiency in English or Math is the worst possible path for these students, schools and society.
Despite such records, voters in major blue cities continue to reelect the same politicians and replicate the same failed policies. We will continue to condemn generations of inner city kids to lives of poverty unless we change the economic and political equation for education policies, including breaking the hold of unions like the NEA. They are “winning” in Arkansas, but it is the students not the politicians who are reaping the rewards.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Prof. Turely
I am at odds with your analysis of education – both past and present.
Vouchers are far from a perfect solution. I advocate them ONLY as an improvement an d a stepping stone to a truly free market in education.
Alternatives to traditional public education nearly all work to some extent for much the same reason – they are REQUIRED to demonstrate their value – not to government – but to parents, in order to attract students.
Your parents were correct there is value to a diverse education. But there is also value in an education that leaves students competent in the 3R’s
There are MANY things we want from the education of our children. There is only one arrangement that offers the real possibility of acheiving most of what we want.
You are particularly hard on teachers unions – and teachers unions are a problem in public education – FDR was correct – unions and governemnt employment are incompatible.
But the core problem with unions is that in the public education system we have today they have too much power. The fix is NOT to restrict the power of unions – but to give power to parents – which is where power over education belongs.
One of the major problems with Government GENERALLY – is that it ALWAYS concentrates power. And that ALWAYS leads to bad results.
Randi Wiengarten hjas made no secret of the fact that her entire focus is on the interests of Teachers – not students, not parents, not the public. And that is exactly where her entire focus should be – it is stupid, ineffectual and morally wrong to try to get any individual or group to act in anything except their self interest.
If you want systems to work you must allow the natural freedom of competing interests.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. ”
We want teachers unions to have to appeal to others – specifically Parents – in order to get what they want. And we want parents to have to appeal to teachers unions to get what they want.
What we do not want is some top down arrangement where everyone competes to rent power from government to get what they want.
We do not want Government as the arbiter between competing interests – that always leads to rent seeking and corruption, and it always leads to concentrations of power.
Vouchers are NOT the answer – they are just a step in the right direction.
The answer is to entirely eliminate public education – as well as the school taxes that fund it – and have people pay for the education they want.
Regardless we do NOT want a top down – but a mostly bottom up system