A federal judge who will preside over a lawsuit challenging a section of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders‘ Arkansas LEARNS K-12 education overhaul says his family won’t seek a school voucher this year after all.
Initially, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky said his family planned to apply for a voucher created under LEARNS. Rudofsky’s statement Friday that he would not recuse from the lawsuit despite planning to benefit from the voucher program the LEARNS Act established made headlines and caused concern among some observers.
In a brief order today, however, Rudofsky wrote, “To keep the parties up-to-date, it now appears that my family will not be applying for an Education Freedom Account this year, but (at least presently) we have the intent to do so in future years.”
Under LEARNS, families can obtain publicly funded vouchers to put toward private school tuition, home school supplies and other education expenses outside the traditional public school system.
Rudofsky was assigned to the case after Judge Kristine Baker recused but gave no reason.
Rudofsy’s taking over the case was considered good news for LEARNS supporters as he’s a conservative jurist, a Trump appointee and a member of the conservative Federalist Society. Baker is considered more liberal.
The lawsuit, filed last week, objects to Arkansas’s decision last summer to no longer count an AP African American Studies course toward state graduation requirements, citing a part of LEARNS that prohibits “indoctrination” in the classroom. The plaintiffs are two parents, two students and a history teacher from Little Rock’s Central High School, one of six schools in the state that offered AP African American Studies in the 2023-24 school year.
Only some Arkansas students can benefit from the voucher program this school year. They include students from low-performing public schools, new kindergarteners and children with disabilities. The program will expand to include other groups in 2024-25 (year two of LEARNS), then open its doors to all students in the state in year three. This year, each voucher costs the state around $6,700.
Also today, Rudofsky granted the plaintiffs’ request for additional time, through April 12, to file any response on his decision not to recuse. He had originally granted just seven days.
“Certainly, the plaintiffs appreciate the court for notifying them of his family’s intention to apply for educational funding pursuant to the Education Freedom Act, which is a benefit derivative of the LEARNS Act; however, the plaintiffs need additional time to consider whether to formulate a response to the Court’s revelation, especially in light of the forthcoming Amended Complaint,” they wrote.
In giving other reasons for needing more time, the plaintiffs said they also haven’t served the defendants with the complaint yet “and are preparing an Amended Complaint that may put this case in somewhat of a slightly different posture.”
