What Is the Arkansas LEARNS Act? A 2026 Guide for Teachers, Principals and District Leaders

The state has continued to increase teacher pay since 2023. In 2025-26, Arkansas awarded nearly $20 million, a figure the state notes includes fringe benefits, to nearly 5,000 educators through the LEARNS Merit Teacher Incentive Fund, with the average bonus around $3,300 and 80 educators receiving the maximum $10,000, according to the Arkansas Government website.

Morale data is notable. Arkansas ranked among the top states for teacher job satisfaction in a 2026 Education Week state-by-state analysis. Education Week cautions that when state confidence intervals overlap, one state cannot be said with certainty to rank above another; treat this as a strong signal rather than a settled ranking. Salary alone does not explain it either, though state officials point to the LEARNS raises as one contributing factor.

For principals and district HR leaders, the workload change here is real. Salary schedules, hiring offers and retention conversations that once ran largely on a fixed statewide schedule now require a local compensation strategy, a responsibility that increasingly sits with the superintendent’s office rather than a single state formula. Budgeting for that shift means setting aside staff time for compensation planning that didn’t previously exist as a standalone task, part of the broader operations management workload superintendents now carry.

Literacy and Science-of-Reading Mandates: Dyslexia Screening and Third-Grade Reading Rules

Arkansas built its science-of-reading requirements before LEARNS, through the 2017 Right to Read Act and its 2019 update, but LEARNS accelerated enforcement and attached new consequences to the results. Current Arkansas Department of Education rules require dyslexia screening for every student in kindergarten through third grade. Instruction for students who show dyslexia markers must be explicit, individualized and multisensory, and materials districtwide must be grounded in the science of reading rather than left to a district’s prior curriculum choice.

The law also placed literacy coaches in schools that earned a D or an F on their state report card, according to the Arkansas Advocate, which focused specifically on kindergarten through third-grade reading instruction. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, third-grade reading performance on the ATLAS assessment determines whether a student is promoted, a standard that pairs retention with required, targeted reading intervention rather than a simple pass-through policy, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

Districts can still promote a student who misses the reading standard under a “good-cause exemption,” which covers students with limited English proficiency, students with an IEP or 504 plan, students already retained once, students in an intensive literacy intervention program and students with a pending special education referral, according to the Arkansas Advocate. These exemptions covered most students who fell short in the rule’s first year: Springdale schools exempted about 390 of the 403 third graders who initially scored below standard, North Little Rock exempted roughly 110 of 202, and Pulaski County Special School District exempted just over half of its roughly 200, according to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

For principals, this is a staffing and scheduling question as much as a curriculum one. Intervention blocks, coach placement and parent communication around a retention decision all now run on a state-set clock. Arkansas State University’s Ed.S. in Reading and graduate Dyslexia Certificate programs are built around this exact compliance layer, preparing reading specialists and district leaders to implement universal screening and evidence-based interventions rather than treating it as an add-on.

Education Freedom Accounts: The Budget Question Every District Leader Needs to Track

An Education Freedom Account is Arkansas’s universal school choice account, funded through a share of the state’s per-pupil formula and available to any Arkansas K-12 student, whether they attend private school, are homeschooled or want to pay for tutoring, therapy or other approved education expenses. Eligibility phased in by grade level starting in 2023-24 and became universal for every student in the 2025-26 school year.

For 2025-26, Arkansas funded each Education Freedom Account at $6,864 per student, rising to $7,208 in 2026-27, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Arkansas Department of Education. The amounts correspond to 90% of the prior year’s statewide per-student foundation funding under Arkansas law.

The program’s fiscal footprint expanded sharply after eligibility became universal. The state’s original $187 million FY2025-26 EFA allocation was followed by an additional $90 million from the Restricted Reserve Fund, according to the Arkansas Senate. The legislature later increased the EFA allocation to $309.5 million for FY2026-27, per the state’s FY2026-27 budget allocations.

Arkansas public school enrollment posted its sharpest decline in at least a decade the first year Education Freedom Accounts opened to every student. However, a large share of newly approved accounts went to students already attending private school or already being homeschooled rather than students transferring directly out of a public classroom, according to enrollment data reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. District finance officers are watching this closely because Education Freedom Account participation interacts with declining-enrollment funding protections instead of replacing them outright, so the net effect on any single district’s budget depends on local enrollment trends as much as on the statewide numbers.

For curriculum directors and business managers building a multi-year budget, the practical task is separating the statewide headline from the district-specific enrollment and declining-enrollment funding numbers that determine next year’s allocation. Pulling district-level enrollment projections before assuming a statewide trend applies locally is what keeps that separation accurate.

Open Enrollment and Public School Choice: What Changed for Transfers

Separate from Education Freedom Accounts, LEARNS also rewrote how students move between public school districts. 2025 legislation allowed students, for the first time, to transfer to a different public school within their own resident district rather than only to another district, while another 2025 law limited a nonresident school’s ability to reject transfers for lack of capacity to cases in which 95% or more of the seats at the relevant grade level are filled and prohibited discrimination based on residential address.

Districts now run a predictable annual transfer cycle:

1. Accept public school choice transfer applications from January through the state deadline in early June
2. Evaluate each request against the 95% capacity threshold and any applicable desegregation order
3. Notify families of acceptance or denial in writing, with a stated reason for any denial
4. Report transfer application and enrollment numbers publicly through the DESE

For principals fielding transfer requests and district enrollment offices, open enrollment has shifted from an occasional exception to a recurring, reportable process that touches staffing ratios and building capacity planning every year. Building a standing annual process for it, rather than handling each request on a case-by-case basis, is what keeps the reporting requirement manageable.

School Accountability Letter Grades: The New A-F Formula

Arkansas has issued A-F school letter grades since 2023, but Act 474 rewrote the formula to align with LEARNS and with the state’s newer ATLAS assessment. Under the current model, a school’s letter grade is built from nine equally weighted indicators grouped into three domains: Achievement, Growth and Readiness. Elementary and middle school grades weigh achievement and year-over-year growth, with extra credit for progress among students furthest behind. High school grades add a measure of whether graduates are success ready, meaning prepared to enlist, enroll or find employment.

The first year under the new formula, 2024-25, produced 122 A schools, 291 B schools, 352 C schools, 137 D schools and 130 F schools statewide, according to ADE’s 2024-25 letter grade results. Every D and F school automatically qualifies for the literacy coach placements described above, according to the Arkansas Advocate, which ties the accountability formula directly back to staffing decisions rather than leaving grades as a rating with no operational consequence.

District and building leaders are the ones translating nine technical indicators into a public-facing letter grade parents understand and increasingly into a school improvement plan with real budget and staffing tradeoffs behind it. That translation work is easiest when it starts well before grades are released, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Arkansas LEARNS Act do?

The Arkansas LEARNS Act (Act 237 of 2023) reshapes K-12 education in five areas. It raises teacher pay, creates universal school choice through Education Freedom Accounts, mandates science-of-reading instruction and dyslexia screening, expands public school open enrollment and replaces the state’s school rating system with a new A-F accountability formula.

What is the minimum teacher salary under Arkansas’s LEARNS Act?

LEARNS set Arkansas’s minimum teacher salary at $50,000, up from $36,000, and guaranteed every teacher already earning above that floor at least a $2,000 raise. Teachers can also earn up to $10,000 more for strong performance or for teaching a hard-to-staff subject or region.

What are Arkansas Education Freedom Accounts?

An Education Freedom Account is a state-funded account any Arkansas K-12 student can use to pay for private school tuition, homeschooling costs or other approved education expenses. Eligibility became universal in the 2025-26 school year, and the state is funding each account at $6,864 per student for 2025-26.

How does Arkansas’s school accountability letter grade system work?

Since Act 474 realigned the formula to LEARNS, Arkansas schools receive an A-F letter grade based on nine equally weighted indicators across three domains: Achievement, Growth and Readiness. High schools add a measure of how prepared graduates are to enlist, enroll or find employment.

Can Arkansas students transfer to any public school they want?

Open enrollment expanded significantly under LEARNS. Most district-by-district transfer caps were lifted in 2025, but a school can still deny a transfer if a grade level is at 95% capacity or more, a desegregation order applies or the transfer would exceed state student-teacher ratio limits.

Did the LEARNS Act eliminate a pay raise for teachers earning a master’s degree?

LEARNS guarantees the $50,000 minimum salary and a $2,000 raise for every teacher, but it does not require districts to add a separate salary step for a master’s degree. Whether an advanced degree carries a pay premium now depends on each district’s own compensation schedule rather than state law.

Where can I find the official text of the Arkansas LEARNS Act?

The full text of Act 237 of 2023 is available from the Arkansas General Assembly, and the Arkansas Department of Education maintains an implementation hub covering rule changes, reports and action items tied to the law.

What LEARNS Act changes took effect for the 2025-26 or 2026-27 school year?

Recent changes include universal Education Freedom Account eligibility, a third-grade reading-based promotion standard tied to the ATLAS assessment, a strengthened public school open enrollment law, the first results under the new nine-indicator accountability formula and proposed 2026 rules covering Education Freedom Account reimbursements.