Letter to the Editor - Misty Newcomb Op-Ed

June 04, 2026

by Misty Newcomb

For the last fifteen years, I’ve served as the founding leader of a PK-12th-grade private school

that has offered scholarships for lower- and middle-income students. The Arkansas Education

Freedom Accounts have made this monumental task easier. Unlike residentially-zoned public

schools and income-based programs that often unintentionally segregate students by income,

programs like ours integrate poorer children into the same environments as their more

advantaged peers. In doing so, children reap benefits often afforded only to more affluent

families. The benefits are not solely academic. These environments confer opportunity through

their social networks. This social capital explains why gold standard studies show low-income

private school choice participants have higher academic attainment, greater civic engagement,

and even lower rates of criminal behavior than peers–even if test scores aren’t significantly

higher. I support the EFAs because I’ve seen firsthand how the attention received in smaller,

community-oriented schools can alter a child’s trajectory.

Recent legislative funding battles and an incoming ballot initiative threaten these experiences.

Without the funding, it will be difficult–if not impossible–for lower-income families to enroll in

private schools. But the funding provided through the EFA–which is about half of what Arkansas

public schools spend per student–is hardly enough to cover the cost of operating under “the

same rules and standards” required by the ballot initiative. For example, this ballot initiative

would require a school with 50 children to operate under the same standards for facilities,

transportation, and personnel as a district with 18,000 children. Under the initiative, I wouldn’t be

qualified to run our small school despite a PhD and 15 years of experience in private school

leadership. In a rural state like ours that already suffers from significant disparities in human

capital, we should look at what states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas are doing to offer

flexibility to small schools to reduce administrative burden–not increase it as this ballot initiative

threatens to do.

Critics have raised legitimate concerns that too few poor children participate in the EFA

program. Understandably, existing families were the first to take advantage of the program once

universally accessible. But as we move into the next phase of education freedom in Arkansas,

we must reach more children in underserved communities. School choice supporters cannot

speak the language of empowerment and social mobility if such opportunities do not exist where

they are most critical. The poorer regions of our state–where presumably such empowerment is

most necessary–are woefully underserved. And where choices do exist, participants often do

not reflect the racial or socioeconomic realities of their surrounding communities. That must

change for the EFA program to have any credibility.

Rather than creating unnecessary administrative burdens that would squelch private schools’

efficacy, we should direct our efforts toward increasing the supply and capacity of schools of

choice to serve children from all backgrounds. The first step toward that is rejecting this ballot

initiative. Then we need to get to work to ensure that our words are backed by the action

required to ensure freedom for all children.