JONATHAN TURLEY: Arkansas schools teachers unions and proves education can be improved
What the left has said
Inferred left“Arkansas Education Law Raises Scores But Critics Warn of Costs to Public Schools”
Left-leaning coverage of the Arkansas LEARNS Act tends to foreground what the voucher component takes away from traditional public schools, arguing that redirecting state dollars to private institutions strains already underfunded districts. Advocates for public education warn that proficiency gains in early data can reflect demographic sorting or teaching-to-the-test effects rather than genuine systemic improvement. The role of teachers unions is central to this framing: the LEARNS Act's restrictions on union influence are cast as an attack on worker organizing rights rather than a neutral reform. Progressive critics also note that Jonathan Turley's endorsement carries an ideological valence, given his visibility as a conservative legal commentator, and that celebrating early test score bumps without controlling for confounding variables sets a low evidentiary bar for a law with far-reaching structural consequences.
What the right says
Right“Arkansas Proves School Choice and Teacher Reform Actually Raise Test Scores”
Conservative coverage treats the Arkansas LEARNS Act as a clean validation of the school choice model, with real proficiency gains in math, science, and English serving as the answer to years of union resistance to reform. Fox News and Jonathan Turley frame the results as proof that teachers unions have been the primary obstacle to improvement, and that states willing to bypass union opposition and empower parents with vouchers can move the needle where decades of status-quo spending failed. Gov. Sanders is cast as the protagonist here, a reform-minded executive who took on entrenched interests and produced results. The right-leaning frame largely sets aside questions about causation or long-term sustainability, treating the early data as sufficient vindication and a replicable blueprint for other Republican-led states looking to restructure public education.