Arkansas Receives a Failing Grade It Can Be Proud Of

Education,

This year the State of Arkansas received a failing grade that it can be proud of.

The radical group Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) gave Arkansas an ‘F’ grade on its 2025 United States Sex Education report card.

Part of SIECUS’s mission is “ensuring sex education drives social change.” The group has a reputation of promoting inappropriate sexual material in schools.

SIECUS gave Arkansas a failing grade largely thanks to good legislation conservatives in Arkansas have enacted to protect children from groups like SIECUS.

The 2025 SIECUS report card for Arkansas specifically criticized the state’s laws protecting students from explicit material and pro-LGBT indoctrination at school. It also took issue with Arkansas’ sexual risk avoidance education program that promotes abstinence, and it criticized the state’s good, pro-life laws — including laws that keep abortionists and their affiliates out of public schools.

In 2021, Family Council obtained nearly 1,400 pages of documents that revealed how Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion provider — had spent several years conducting sex education classes in Pulaski County public schools. We know from experience that the kind of sex education that Planned Parenthood and SIECUS promote simply is ineffective.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s liberals in Arkansas promoted comprehensive sex education in Arkansas’ public schools.

In 1997 the Arkansas Legislature and the Mike Huckabee Administration switched to abstinence education in Arkansas.

Under Governor Huckabee’s abstinence education program, Arkansas’ teen birthrate decreased 17%, and Arkansas’ teen abortion rate plummeted a staggering 48%.

The abstinence education model was so successful in Arkansas that it drew national recognition.

After his election in 2008, President Obama’s administration gave Planned Parenthood millions of dollars in funding for comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention programs.

Experts later found students who went through Planned Parenthood’s sex education program were often more likely to become pregnant or cause a pregnancy afterwards.

In other words, Planned Parenthood’s multimillion-dollar sex education program did exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do.

In 2016 — while President Barack Obama was still in office — the federal Centers for Disease Control released a 208-page report concluding teenagers who practice abstinence are healthier in nearly every way than teenagers who are sexually active.

The CDC’s report looked at everything from seatbelt and bike helmet use to substance abuse, diet, exercise, and even tanning bed use.

Their conclusion was that sexually active teens were less healthy and engaged in riskier behavior across the board.

In spite of all of this, groups like SIECUS and Planned Parenthood still promote comprehensive sex education in public schools instead of abstinence and risk avoidance education.

Given comprehensive sex education’s track record, receiving a failing grade on the SIECUS’s report card is something Arkansans can actually be proud of.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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State of Arkansas Has Invested $111M+ in School Choice Since July 1

Education, , ,

Data from the state’s official transparency website shows Arkansas has spent more than $111 million on its school choice program since July 1.

In 2023, lawmakers passed the LEARNS Act overhauling public education in Arkansas and making it possible for students to use public dollars to pay for an education at a public or private school or through home schooling. Family Council and our homeschool division, the Education Alliance, were pleased to support this good law, because it gives families educational opportunities.

The State of Arkansas reportedly spent $111,138,210 on Educational Freedom Accounts under the LEARNS Act from July 1 through October 31 of this year. Administrative costs have accounted for $916,574 of the program’s spending. The other $110.2 million went to pay for education expenses.

Last spring, the General Assembly budgeted nearly $187.5 million for the Educational Freedom Accounts for the 2025-2026 school year and placed $90 million in its Restricted Reserve Fund set aside for the program.

Since the LEARNS Act launched in 2023, thousands of students have taken advantage of school choice in Arkansas. Many families feel that public education has deteriorated over the years, and they don’t like the direction it is heading. For those families, programs like the LEARNS Act could empower them with real alternatives that help their children succeed. That is part of the reason Family Council has supported the LEARNS Act.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Central Arkansas Home Schoolers Continue Tradition of Excellence

Education, Home School

In October, Family Council’s home school division, the Education Alliance, received a home school honor society application from two students in central Arkansas whose ACT scores were among the best in the nation.

Eleventh grader Jesse Muller from Little Rock scored a 36 on the ACT earlier this year. Jesse’s brother, Tobias, scored a 35. Both students have 3.9 GPAs calculated on a four-point scale.

For perspective, the 2024 ACT Profile Report indicates the average ACT score for the past five years has hovered between 19 and 20 out of 36. Scoring a 35 puts Tobias in the 99th percentile of all students who took the ACT. And only about one in every 450 students scores a 36 like Jesse.

We have written repeatedly about how home schooling makes it possible for students and families to thrive.

Last year, a home school robotics team from Russellville competed in the world robotics championship in Texas.

Home schoolers from Arkansas are routinely named National Merit Scholar Semifinalists.

For years, the State of Arkansas tested home schoolers. In 2009, Arkansas’ home schoolers performed better on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills than 60% – 80% of the students who took that test nationwide. In fact, home schoolers in Arkansas performed so well on standardized tests year after year that the Arkansas Legislature finally ended state-mandated testing in 2015.

The ACT may be one way to measure students, but it’s not the only way. Beyond academics, home schooling is great for families. It lets parents and students tailor an education that’s right for them. It gives moms and dads the opportunity to teach their values and convictions to their children.

Family Council and the Education Alliance would like to recognize Jesse and Tobias–and their family–for their academic achievement and for continuing Arkansas’ longstanding tradition of home school excellence.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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