Arkansas Education Reform: LEARNS Act, EFA Vouchers, and Teacher Pay

The Arkansas LEARNS Act, signed as Act 237 of 2023, rebuilt the state’s public education system in a single bill: it raised the minimum teacher salary to $50,000, opened a statewide voucher program that now covers every K-12 student, required reading instruction grounded in phonics and the broader science of reading, tied third-grade promotion to a reading test, and repealed the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act. If you teach in an Arkansas public school or have a child in one, nearly every part of your week is touched by it.

The $50,000 Teacher Salary Floor

Starting with the 2023-2024 school year, no full-time classroom teacher in Arkansas can be paid less than $50,000, up from the previous $36,000 floor.¹ Teachers already employed were guaranteed at least a $2,000 raise over whatever they were making on September 1, 2022.²

The law also scrapped the statewide salary schedule that used to lock in raises for every added year of experience and every additional degree. Districts still have to publish a salary schedule to qualify for state funding, but they design it themselves.¹ Many districts have narrowed the gap between brand-new teachers and veterans, which can mean slower salary growth for experienced staff than the old step-and-lane system produced.

To draw the state money that funds these raises, a district has to keep school open for in-person instruction at least 178 days (or 1,068 hours) and require teachers to work a minimum of 190 contracted days.¹

Merit Bonuses on Top of Base Pay

The Merit Teacher Incentive Fund pays annual bonuses that sit separately from base salary, so a strong year does not permanently raise what you earn going forward.³ The headline amounts go to teachers whose students post the strongest growth statewide:

Top 0.5% in student growth: $10,000
Top 1%: $9,000
Top 5%: $6,000
Top 25% in a single tested subject (ELA, math, or science): $3,000

Smaller bonuses target shortage areas and advanced credentials: $2,500 for teaching a shortage subject such as secondary science, foreign language, or special education; $1,500 for serving in a geographic shortage area or holding a Lead or Master license; and $3,000 for mentoring a year-long teaching resident.⁴ Bonuses can stack across categories. Average payout has been around $3,300, with the full range running from $1,500 to $10,000.⁵

To be eligible, you have to spend at least 70% of your contracted time working directly with students and earn an annual rating of Effective or higher. Counselors, library media specialists, and teachers on permits can qualify too.

End of the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act

The LEARNS Act repealed the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act, the statutory framework that since the 1980s had governed how districts could discipline or fire teachers.⁶ Under that law, a teacher with more than three years of continuous service could not be dismissed without a multi-step hearing process that often stretched for months.

Districts now make hiring, assignment, and dismissal decisions based on performance, effectiveness, and qualifications, and seniority or tenure cannot be the primary basis for those decisions.⁷ Teachers still have due process rights under other state laws, and local boards can set their own hearing timelines, but the old arbitration path is gone. Job security now rides more on evaluations and classroom results than on years of service.

Education Freedom Accounts: Vouchers for Every Student

The Education Freedom Account program lets families redirect state education funding to pay for private school, tutoring, and other approved educational costs. For the 2025-2026 school year, each participating student receives $6,864, equal to 90% of the previous year’s per-student foundation funding. Students who previously held a Succeed Scholarship receive $7,627.⁸ The amount resets each year as foundation funding changes.

Eligibility was phased in. The first two years were limited to priority groups: students with disabilities, children in foster care, students assigned to low-performing schools, military-connected families, and kindergarteners. Starting with 2025-2026, every K-12 Arkansas resident can apply. Applications for 2026-2027 are open now.

Application Windows

For the 2026-2027 school year, applications are reviewed in four priority windows:

Window A: March 9 through March 29
Window B: March 30 through April 19
Window C: April 20 through May 10
Window D: May 11 through June 1

Applying in an earlier window helps if demand exceeds funding. Families already in the program must renew by June 1 to stay enrolled.⁸

What the Money Covers

Approved expenses include private school tuition and fees, uniforms, curriculum, tutoring, educational therapy, testing fees, and college-credit courses.⁹ Funds are disbursed quarterly. If a student leaves a participating school mid-quarter, the school must return the unused prorated portion to the state.¹⁰ At many private schools the EFA amount will not cover full tuition, so plan for the gap.

What EFA Families Give Up in Special Education

This is the part most families do not look at closely enough. In public school, your child is entitled to a free appropriate public education under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, including an individualized education program built around their needs. When you voluntarily place your child in a private school using an EFA, that individual entitlement changes. The district must still spend a proportionate share of its federal special education dollars on parentally placed private school students as a group, but your child no longer has an individual right to the same level of services they would have received in the public school.¹¹

A child who had speech therapy, occupational therapy, and a one-on-one aide under a public school IEP may receive far less at a private school, or nothing at all. EFA funds can be spent on some educational therapies, but they rarely replace what a fully funded IEP provides. If your child has significant service needs, weigh the private setting against the services on the table before you move.

Science of Reading and K-3 Literacy Screening

LEARNS, building on the earlier Right to Read Act, requires every public school to use curriculum and methods aligned with the science of reading: explicit, systematic instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency, rather than approaches that lean on context clues or whole-language strategies.¹² Every K-6 teacher and every special education teacher has to demonstrate proficiency in those methods; other teachers have to show awareness of them.¹³ Schools rated D or F get state literacy coaches assigned to work directly with classroom teachers.

Every student in kindergarten through third grade is screened with a state-approved literacy assessment within the first 30 days of the school year, again at midyear if concerns surface, and once more at the end of the year. The screener looks at phonological awareness, sound-symbol recognition, alphabet knowledge, decoding, rapid naming, encoding, and language comprehension.¹⁴ Students flagged with a substantial reading deficit receive intervention from a trained specialist, and parents must be notified of progress at least twice a year.

Third-Grade Retention Starting in 2025-2026

Beginning at the end of the 2025-2026 school year, a third grader who does not score at least Level 2 on the Grade 3 ATLAS English Language Arts assessment will not move up to fourth grade.¹⁵ This is the sharpest consequence in the whole law for any one child.

There are good cause exemptions. A student can still be promoted below Level 2 if any of the following apply:

Significant cognitive disability, meaning the student is eligible for the Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) alternative assessment
An active IEP or 504 Plan combined with more than two years of documented, science-of-reading-aligned intervention
Fewer than three years in a formal English learner program
Previously retained in any prior grade
Evaluated for special education, did not qualify, but received at least two years of intensive reading support and still shows a reading need
A portfolio of classroom evidence showing consistent grade-level performance that the ATLAS score does not reflect
A documented traumatic event that affected test performance

No exemption is automatic. If you think one might apply to your child, start the conversation with the school well before the spring test so the documentation is in place.¹⁶

1
Justia. Arkansas Code 6-17-2403 – Minimum Teacher Compensation Schedule – Definition
2
Arkansas Department of Education. ADE Commissioner’s Memo FIN-23-046 – Teacher Minimum Salary and Raise Fund
3
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Merit Teacher Incentive Fund
4
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Merit Teacher Incentive Fund – Merit Pay Eligibility and Amounts
5
Arkansas State Legislature. Merit Teacher Incentive Fund
6
Justia. Arkansas Code 6-17-1506 – Repealed
7
Arkansas Department of Education. LEARNS Work Groups Kick Off – Human Resources
8
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Education Freedom Accounts – Information for Families
9
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Family EFA Details
10
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. EFA Private School Handbook
11
U.S. Department of Education. IDEA Equitable Services for Parentally Placed Private School Children with Disabilities
12
Legal Information Institute. Arkansas Code R 005.28.24 – DESE Rule Governing the Right to Read Act
13
Arkansas Department of Education. Prescribed Pathway Credentials
14
Arkansas State Legislature. DESE Rules Governing the Right to Read Act and Act 237 of 2023
15
Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Understanding AR Third Grade Promotion
16
Arkansas Department of Education. LS-26-018 – Third-Grade Promotion Guidance 2025-2026