The House Education Committee will be one of the most important committees in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Likely issues include legislation on:
- School choice where state dollars follow the child to whatever kind of school the parents choose;
- Stopping the radical left from indoctrinating children with racist theories such as the Critical Race Theory, which says one race is always the oppressors and one race is the always the victims; and
- Stopping school transgender indoctrination programs which get children to choose a gender and then help children to supposedly transition to a different gender.
Those three issues are just for starters. The House Education Committee is the first place in the House where the left will try to stop such legislation. The committee has twenty members, which means eleven affirmative votes are necessary for legislation to advance to a vote by the full House of Representatives.
We can’t predict how the members will vote but we will caution you that seven of the committee members who were in the House of Representatives in 2021 did not support either of the school choice bills considered. The first bill was HB1371 to assist about 800 students from low-income families to attend private school. When the first bill failed, SB380 was introduced with an even smaller goal of providing about 400 such scholarships to children of low-income families.
The seven committee members who did not support school choice either voted “No” or did not vote on the two bills. Not voting has the same effect as a “No” vote. The seven who failed to support either bill are:
- Bruce Cozart (R)
- Lanny Fite (R)
- Vivian Flowers (D)
- Denise Garner (D)
- Ron McNair (R)
- John Maddox (R)
- DeAnn Vaught (R)
If those seven committee members continue to not support school choice in the upcoming legislative session, then the aginners will only need three more votes to block school choice in committee.
The committee has five members who are newly elected and will serve in their first term. The five are Representatives-Elect Hope Duke (R), Wayne Long (R), Brit McKenzie (R), Stetson Painter (R), and Steven Walker (R). How will they vote?
According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Representative-Elect Steven Walker is a digital learning specialist with the Arkansas Department of Education.[i] This puts him in a spot, should he go against his employer and the education industry on education issues.
The chair and vice chair of the House Education Committee have not been appointed yet by Speaker of the House Matthew Shepherd. Shepherd’s previous choices for chairs of committees have nearly all gone to Representatives with weak voting records on conservative issues.
Here is the full membership of the House Education Committee.[ii]
- Sonia Eubanks Barker
- Rick Beck
- Keith Brooks
- Bruce Cozart
- Hope Duke
- Charlene Fite
- Lanny Fite
- Brian S. Evans
- Vivian Flowers
- Denise Garner
- Grant Hodges
- Wayne Long
- John Maddox
- Brit McKenzie
- Ron McNair
- Stephen Meeks
- Stetson Painter
- Carlton Wing
- DeAnn Vaught
- Steven Walker
ALL members of the House Education Committee need your support to help them put the student and parents first –before the interests of the superintendents and education elite.
[i] Education proves popular as state House members pick panels, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 12/06/2022
[ii] https://arkansashouse.org/assets/uploads/2022/12/20221206082710-ab-committees-2023-2024pdf.pdf
