Arkansas State Sen. Breanne Davis: Empowering Families through Education Reform

This week, we're thrilled to have Arkansas State Senator Breanne Davis, the lead sponsor of the LEARNS Act, a transformative piece of legislation that has had a profound impact on the state's education system. Listen in as Senator Davis passionately discusses how the LEARNS Act has empowered families with education freedom accounts, allowing them to make the best educational choices for their children.

Don't miss our in-depth exploration of education reform in Arkansas and how this can inspire change in Mississippi. Senator Davis shares the phased approach taken in her state, from initially focusing on active military families to eventually including all students. She further highlights the comprehensive nature of this reform, with measures aimed at improving literacy, boosting teacher pay, and enhancing resources for public schools. We also explore why supporting and empowering teachers is crucial for the success of any education system. Tune in and be part of the conversation, as we strive for a Mississippi where everyone can rise.

 

Transcript 

Grant Callen: Welcome to the empower podcast, the show where we talk about Mississippi's big challenges and big opportunities. Each episode, we'll talk with lawmakers, policy experts, and community leaders about how we can break down barriers together to create a Mississippi where everyone can rise.

Welcome back. This is your host Grant Callen, and I'm really excited about today's guest who just left a room full of school kids. It is Arkansas state Senator Breanne Davis. She is in her second term as a state Senator. She's a native of Russellville, Arkansas where she served on the school board. She was the first member of the Arkansas general assembly to give birth while in office. She had a baby girl in the fall of 2018 and she and her husband, John Paul have two sons and two daughters. She is with me today. Because she was the lead sponsor of the LEARNS Act, which was championed by her and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. And among other things, it created a statewide school choice program open to every child in the state of Arkansas. Welcome to the show, Senator.

Breanne Davis: Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be on today.

Grant Callen: We're so glad to have you and you were down in Mississippi, in September at our Policy Summit Unleash Mississippi on a panel talking about education savings accounts, and we'll be sure and put a link to that conversation in the show notes, but since then, I have had so many reach out and ask for more information about the Learns Act. Arkansas is just across the border from Mississippi. People are seeing what y'all have done. So let's start kind of big picture and then we'll get into the details, at a high level. What is the Learns Act?

Breanne Davis: The Learns Act is so many things but very high level it's about literacy, it's about school choice, parents and students getting to decide what's best for their family, it's about bringing professionalism back to the teaching profession, micromanaging less. Paying teachers more, being competitive across the country, and like I think I just said, school safety as well, making sure that our students have a safe environment in which they can learn, read, and thrive, grow up to be great, responsible adults in the state of Arkansas.

Grant Callen: What were the particular components of that act that were focus on school choice?

Breanne Davis: So for school choice, we created what we call Education Freedom Accounts in the state of Arkansas, and it's essentially a phased in approach over the next three years, we phase it in to ensure that we're doing it responsibly, and that we work out all the kinks as we grow it over the next three years, so that in year three it will be universal to any student in the state of Arkansas. What it allows for is a family to take 90 percent of our current state funding per student funding and put it towards a child's education, whether that be private school or homeschool, and it gives them options to be able to send their kid to a school that best meets their educational needs.

Grant Callen: So this concept, education savings accounts, y'all call them education freedom accounts, has really been sweeping the country, it's been growing in popularity because it's parent centered, it's really student centered, it's flexible, it puts parents in the driver's seat. This is a concept we have in Mississippi with our special needs ESA program, but it's very small. So what has been growing in momentum in Mississippi and growing demand and growing interest is to create what you did in Arkansas which is this universal eligibility ESA program, so can you tell a little bit about what makes your program universal?

Breanne Davis: Yeah so what I love, Arkansas had something, similar what you're talking about, we had what we call the succeed scholarship for the last several years, and it was for students with disabilities and we had a cap on it though we kept it small, put a cap on it, and it was capped out within minutes of the program going live every single year. So there were a lot of students that didn't get to participate just simply because people applied so quickly. What we did for year one for our education freedom accounts is we expanded that, to where anyone who has disabilities, who is a current or former foster child, homeless, active military, or in a failing school we open that up to let any students that fit those categories apply for education freedom accounts, and what we found was an extremely high percentage of students who applied in year one are students with disabilities and what that told us was that there were so many students with disabilities not having their needs met at the school they were at, but that we're looking for a different option of where to send their kids and some of them were already sending their kids to a private school that works specifically with kids with disabilities, but a lot of those parents were working two and three jobs to afford it. So we felt really good about seeing that there was a need and the demand is there and people are actually applying and being able to send their kids to a school that meets their needs, their students with disabilities. And then in year two, we expand it and include non active military, maybe part time reserve, stuff like that we put some broader parameters around it. And we include homeschool in year two, and then in year three is when it goes completely universal for any and all students across the state of Arkansas. And like I said before, it's about 90 percent of funding per student, which right now this year equals close to, I don't know say 6, 800 dollars somewhere around there per student that can follow them to the school of their choice.

Grant Callen: So in just to clarify. It's not like you're going to have to come back each year and expand it to these new audiences. This was all in the original bill. It's just a three year phase in, right?

Breanne Davis: That's correct, and one thing that I've heard from other states who did do universal education saving accounts or whatever they're calling it, I've gotten a lot of feedback that they really loved our approach with the measured phased in approach. And we put a cap in year one that says, we did put caps in for year one and two and in year one it says 1. 5 percent of Arkansas students across the state that's the cap and that equals roughly 7000 students. We didn't hit that cap this year, we're somewhere around 5000 students so we feel really good about that. And then in year two, the cap is about 3 percent of Arkansas students across the state and that's roughly 14000 students. So we try to do it in a measured way, that we could control and know exactly the amount of money we were spending, because Arkansas per our constitution has to have a balanced budget. So we got to make sure our numbers work, it was important to be, fiscally responsible and mindful in the way that we did it. And then in year three, we put some language in there that just said we will effectively and efficiently administer the accounts and the number of students that apply to make sure that we've got the money to back up exactly what we're doing, and it doesn't put our state in a bad position and we feel pretty confident obviously that it won't, we see trends across the country of percentages of students that apply in states that have had the accounts like this for a very long time, so we feel pretty good about what we did in a measured way we did it.

Grant Callen: That's great. As this conversation in Mississippi has ramped up and the calls for a broad based universal eligibility school choice program have grown, there have already been those who have said let's start with kids in failing school districts or let's start with kids in poverty. And what they really mean by that is let's limit the program to those constituencies, and never get to everybody. And I think we'd all agree, let's make sure the folks who need it, get it first. But I love that your program eventually gets to everybody. So I guess my question is, as this process was moving through the legislative process I'm certain you had people who wanted to do an incremental approach and slow it down and pass something much less significant, how did you fight for and advocate for a full package like this without watering it down?

Breanne Davis: Yeah, that's the certainly the challenge in the political environment is being able to keep everybody on board, pass it with the majority, and not have people peel off, and I think a few different things, first of all, we didn't just include our education freedom accounts, we said that we are looking to reform education in our state and our governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she campaigned on that for two years. She talked about the things she wanted to do. So people have been hearing about it the entire time that she'd been campaigning, and the second thing is just looking at our scores and what education looks like in Arkansas and our placement. We had to do something drastic to me and to several others leading all of this. We just said this, if we pick pieces out and pass one little thing at a time, that's not reform that is just tinkering at the edges and in a place where 65 percent of our kids aren't reading at or above grade level in third grade, and when you look at the data and see down into 10th grade, you're still at 65 percent of kids that aren't reading at or above grade level. The numbers don't change, and it's a disservice to our kids and at some point you have to say enough is enough. We've got to be transformational in the way that we take on public education, and we're going to include all options in there, so it's not just about our education freedom accounts but one thing that our education secretary Jacob Aliva says over and over that I love, is he says listen, we know that people will continue to overwhelmingly choose their traditional public schools. It's the place they grew up in. It's where their kids live and play, and we know that people will continue to choose our public schools. And we want to make those as good as we can. They deserve funding to fix some of the issues like we want to attack literacy issues. We want to attack teacher pay because we can't and should be doing better. We want to give money to tutoring for families to have the option to apply for tutoring outside of school to help catch up on reading. We put so many things in the bill that it truly is comprehensive education reform and it's not just about education freedom accounts. That's one really big piece for families to be able to choose, but it's also about getting in and digging into the details of our public schools and putting tools and resources in our teachers hands to help our kids learn to read, to cut down on all the stuff that they're doing in the classroom that the teachers are having to do besides teaching. So streamline the work that they're doing, and then pay them more so that they can make a wage that they deserve.

Grant Callen: I love that, one of the greatest disservices to the education reform movement is that there are so many people that would like to put this conversation and make it a binary choice. You either support public schools, or you support parents having options. And a choice for parents to have options is necessarily a choice against traditional public schools. But you don't see it that way.

Breanne Davis: No, not at all. I think this will ultimately make our public schools better. I think competition always does that. And I think it'll be, man there's some communities across Arkansas that have both public and private schools, and they've got great relationships, they've learned how to work together and they realize that they are not in competition with each other. They offer different things and people will choose based on what their kids need. And I think that's a really great place to be for families to be able to have those options and put their kids where they know they're going to thrive and meet their learning potential, but certainly you can support education freedom accounts and be completely committed to your public schools across the state, it is certainly not one or the other. It can be both at the same time. And that's one another thing I love about Learns, is Learns for everything in the bill, was roughly around 300 million dollars over 250 million of those dollars are investing in public schools, in K 12 education. I just tell people, listen, we overwhelmingly invested in our public schools in the Learns Act and that's because we're committed to our public schools, we're committed to the kids, we're committed to the teachers and the principals that work there, and we want those kids to thrive. And we wanna help empower our teachers in the classroom.

Grant Callen: So if memory serves, and I'm trying to remember from our conversation in September, you used to oppose school choice. Is that right?

Breanne Davis: Yes.

Grant Callen: And what brought you around?

Breanne Davis: For me, the real concerns about school choice was government funding going to, say religious private schools. My concern was that at some point the government would say, hey, we get to choose your curriculum now, or we get to regulate you a little more, or the government starting to put their hands in the business of some of those public schools, or even homeschoolers, and controlling what they do. So that was a real concern for me, I sent my kids to a Christian daycare and I loved what they did and I just thought man, I want our private schools that our Christian private schools or whatever type of private school to have, still have the autonomy to be able to teach the curriculum they have and do what they do. So that was my concern behind it, and as I continue to learn more and more about the issue over the last several years, and then seeing the 2021 supreme court ruling saying that, Hey it doesn't matter if public funds are going to a private Christian school, the government has no say, it is constitutional for that money to go there. That's what really, seeing that there were Supreme Court decisions that ruled on it, and told me what I needed to hear, that really answered my concerns and my fears about it. That's what really moved the needle for me, and allowed me to feel more comfortable in my decision to support universal school choice.

Grant Callen: So you're a mom, and you've got four kids and why is this fight personal to you?

Breanne Davis: Before I came to the State Senate, I served on my local school board for nine years. I ran for school board when I had a one year old and that was it. And that was because I wanted to be involved in his education on the front end and not the back end. It's personal to me because, I mean my kids are still young and I think every day about their learning potential and then meeting it in the school that they're in, they all learn differently, they care about different subjects, they're more passionate about different subjects and they have different styles of learning so to me, I'm just seeing it every single day. I see my friends kids and the different schools that they're all going through and I just think, man, this is our future and what a disservice like what if my kids were behind in reading and maybe I didn't have the resources or know what to do to be able to help them out and so, I have a lot of friends who teach and I see how honestly hard and overbearing that is and how many different regulations the government's put on him both federal and state and have really taken, I don't know teaching, away from them in a sense we've bogged them down with so much paperwork and so many regulations that we've really stopped them from doing their core job in a lot of ways, which is teaching kids. And so to me, it's just personal because we've got so many issues that we need to fix. We have got to help support our teachers and deregulate some of the things that we can, so that they can get back to teaching like I have said for years, we need to put professionalism back in the classroom and that's because we've spent years micromanaging teachers, stripping away or adding regulations and doing so many things that really, they went to school and they are trained professionals to do what they're doing and we want to empower them for that exactly, and so that's why I say bring professionalism back to the classroom because they are trained professionals and we really need to respect that and find ways to support them to enable them to do the job that they've been taught how to do. So there's just so many different reasons, obviously I love Arkansas. I've lived here for a long time, my kids are being raised here. I want to see our communities thrive and that means that in 10 years, when these kids have graduated high school, I want them to be active engaged members of community of workforce, and I want them to have a good job and be able to make money for their family and live comfortably and man, there's just so many things. There's so many layers and that go all the way up to end of life and it all starts with education. It starts with kids. Knowing how to read, that's the single greatest gift that you can give somebody. That they can help navigate and use throughout the rest of their lives. It's important for a lot of reasons, it's hard to encapsulate in a few sentences. But, we've got to be focused on that and we've got to make it a priority, no matter what. We say that we're about the kids, we say that with our mouths a lot of times, but we need to check our actions and make sure that our actions back that up, and that the policies we're enacting, the work that we're doing, truly does support students, and help them in their, journey to lead long, successful, healthy lives.

Grant Callen: I love that you bring up teachers because they are a critical part of this. None of this education system, public, private, charter, magnet, any of it works without great world class teachers standing in front of kids and one of the things that I love about the concept of choice and the practice of choice in education, when the money follows the child, it forces all the education service providers, to be radically focused on their customer which is the student. And so that's how we change the system is we make sure everybody's focused on the kids and the kids getting what they need. And I think choice is a critical piece of that. So as we wrap up, I am so thankful for what y'all did in Arkansas. It is exemplary. I'm really excited about watching it grow as more and more students enroll, as it affects families, as it affects schools, and we start to see the private school landscape develop in Arkansas to meet the needs of more students, as we start to see public schools adapt and innovate to attract more students. I think the sky's the limits for what is going to happen to your families and your communities as you think about what you would say to lawmakers in Mississippi, who are contemplating following in your footsteps, who maybe are afraid, they're fearful of tackling something this transformative and this big, what would you say to encourage lawmakers to take this step and to pass something big and transformative like you all did?

Breanne Davis: I would say it's too big of an issue not to. We don't have time to wait. We don't have time to keep the status quo, keep things as they are every single year that we wait to make a comprehensive reform or a big change in education, is another year that students suffer that there are kids that are not having their educational needs met. And I would just say our students are bigger than any political fear, that we may have. And they deserve us elected leaders doing the right thing for them. I know it's hard being in politics, there's so many things to weigh on so many different policy issues. But man, on this one, it's just too important to let that stuff get in the way. I think we have to make bold decisions, and we have to move forward methodically but swiftly because every day in the classroom where a kid isn't learning to read or have their educational needs met is another day of loss for that student and their education and really that the impact on the well being of their life, their journey as a Mississippi citizen as they grow up and enter the workforce man it's just such a disservice on an issue like that we don't have time to wait, it just wrong.

Grant Callen: We don't have time to wait. I love that. What a great way to end it. Thank you so much for being here, Senator Breanne Davis.

Breanne Davis: Yes, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Grant Callen: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the Empower Podcast. To learn more about how you can get involved and we can work together to make Mississippi a place where everyone can rise. Go to our website at empowerms. org. Please or subscribe on your favorite podcast app, so you'll be notified of future episode.