A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of the law that would have changed how Arkansas libraries handle controversial material and put the availability of certain books in the hands of elected officials.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks granted two of the five sections of , which would alter libraries’ material reconsideration processes and create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors.”

Brooks’ decision means much of Act 372 will not go into effect in the next few days as originally scheduled.

The 18 plaintiffs include libraries, bookstores, advocacy groups and individual library patrons. Lead attorney John Adams argued that Act 372 unfairly restricts librarians’ speech and is unclear about how librarians can avoid the criminal charges put forth in the law.

Brooks concluded that the challenged portions of the law were too vague and could lead to arbitrary interpretation and “content-based restrictions” that violate the First Amendment right to freedom of expression, which would cause the plaintiffs “irreparable harm.”

The Central Arkansas Library System and its executive director, Nate Coulter, are two of the plaintiffs. Coulter said in a statement Saturday that he was “extremely pleased and gratified” by Brooks’ ruling.

“I’m relieved that for now the dark cloud that was hanging over CALS’ librarians has lifted — they will not be threatened with jail for making books available to our patrons,” Coulter said.

He also said he appreciated Brooks’ affirmation that “the librarian’s only enemy is the censor who judges contrary opinions to be dangerous, immoral, or wrong.”

Supporters of Act 372, both in public and in the Arkansas Legislature, have said the policy is necessary to keep “pornographic” content out of children’s reach. Opponents of the law have said it will be used to reduce access to content that reflects the general public, such as the LGBTQ+ community.

The Crawford County Library System moved children’s books with LGBTQ+ topics to a segregated “social section,” accessible only to adults, at all five branches in December 2022 after county residents objected to their availability at multiple quorum court meetings. County officials have cited the law as a reason to keep the books segregated.

The plaintiffs challenging Act 372 chose to sue Crawford County and Crawford County Judge Chris Keith, in addition to the prosecuting attorneys in each of Arkansas’ 28 judicial districts.

In a ruling separate from the one granting the injunction, Brooks denied the Crawford County defendants’ request to dismiss the case against them alone.

“Unjustified burden”

Defense attorneys for both the state and Crawford County argued Tuesday that the plaintiffs’ claims were “merely speculative or hypothetical,” but the plaintiffs proved “they will suffer imminent, particularized injuries” under the challenged portions of Act 372, Brooks wrote in his 49-page ruling.

He said he saw merit in the plaintiffs’ claim that “libraries and bookstores may eliminate many, if not all, books from their collections that contain any sexual content” in order not to run afoul of the new law.

“If merely having a book accessible on the shelf where a minor can reach it will potentially subject librarians and booksellers to criminal penalties, such books may simply be removed,” Brooks wrote. “As a result, these patrons claim their First Amendment right to access non-obscene (i.e., constitutionally protected) reading material will be dramatically curtailed.”

A 2003 state law banned displays of reading material deemed “harmful to minors,” a phrase included in Act 372. Then-Gov. Mike Huckabee signed the 2003 law; his daughter, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in March.

The Arkansas Supreme Court in 2004, partially basing the ruling on the fact that the law did not differentiate based on children’s ages.

Brooks upheld this precedent in his ruling, saying that both the previous law and the current law were too broad, especially since the 2004 ruling “already determined that ‘harmful to minors’ includes a broad category of protected speech,” he wrote.

“Take for example, a paperback romance novel, which contains descriptions of sex,” Brooks said. “It is unlikely young minors would be interested in reading such a book, but if for some reason it were ‘made available’ to them in bookstores or libraries, booksellers and librarians could possibly face penalties — depending on how that term was construed.”

Keeping all individuals under 18 away from books that are not appropriate for younger minors “would likely impose an unnecessary and unjustified burden on any older minor’s ability to access free library books appropriate to his or her age and reading level,” Brooks wrote.

One of the plaintiffs is 17-year-old Hayden Kirby of Little Rock, who stated in court documents that she often goes to the library “unaccompanied by a parent” and would have trouble finding library materials at her reading level if they were relocated on the basis of being unsuitable for younger minors.

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Act 372 requires a committee of library staff, selected by head librarians and “representative of diverse viewpoints,” to be the first to review library materials challenged on the basis of “appropriateness.”

If a challenger disagrees with the library committee’s decision, city or county elected officials will have the final say on where material is placed.

Brooks called this portion of the law “very poorly drafted,” especially since it “provides no criteria to guide the governmental body’s evaluation.”

“Perhaps any vagueness may be chalked up to the General Assembly’s haste to enact Act 372, but the lack of clarity seems to have been by design,” he wrote. “After all, by keeping the pivotal terms vague, local governing bodies have greater flexibility to assess a given challenge however they please rather than how the Constitution dictates.”

Since the law does not define appropriateness or cite libraries’ material selection criteria as a guide, Brooks said it is “difficult, if not impossible, to assess a challenged book’s ‘appropriateness’ without considering its content, message, and/or viewpoint.”

Act 372 prohibits material from being “withdrawn solely for the viewpoints expressed within.” Brooks’ ruling repeated his statement from Tuesday that the word “solely” implies material could be relocated for several reasons, including its expressed viewpoints.

He also repeated that requiring a diversity of viewpoints on the initial review committee would not matter if the viewpoints within the challenged material would be irrelevant to the committee’s decision.

Act 372 did not in March until it had been amended to say library materials would be relocated to an area inaccessible to minors, not removed from the premises, if elected officials find them to be “obscene.”

However, the law “contemplates challenges to appropriateness writ large, not just with respect to minors,” Brooks wrote.

“The law, then, must allow for withdrawal,” he said. “Otherwise, where would such a book — deemed broadly inappropriate for all readers, regardless of age — be placed?”

Brooks also said the state’s attorneys did not prove a “compelling state interest” for the challenge procedure outlined in this portion of Act 372.

Crawford County

Adam Webb, the Garland County Library executive director and one of the plaintiffs against Act 372, said in court documents that the library received “a blanket request” to remove all books with LGBTQ+ characters. Webb said he declined the request and expected those books to be challenged under Act 372.

In contrast, the creation of “social sections” at Crawford County’s libraries was a “compromise” in light of public outcry about LGBTQ+ children’s books, the library system’s then-director said.

The “social sections” are evidence of Crawford County’s interpretation of the challenge provision of Act 372, Brooks wrote in his ruling.

Attorneys for the Crawford County defendants argued Tuesday that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue them. Brooks disagreed in his denial of the defendants’ motion to dismiss them from the case, since the county and its county judge will be responsible for implementing Act 372 if it goes into effect and if appeals reach the county government.

“Their lead argument is that Plaintiffs have no First Amendment right to receive information in a public library and that Crawford County may legally censor and deprive the public access to material at any time and for any reason,” Brooks wrote. “They cite no authority for this position.”

The county and Keith, along with the county’s library board and interim library director, are facing a separate lawsuit from three parents who argue that the “social sections” violate the First Amendment.

The rest of Act 372

Three sections of Act 372 will go into effect this week since they have not been challenged in court.

The law removes schools and public libraries from that previously exempted them from prosecution “for disseminating a writing, film, slide, drawing, or other visual reproduction that is claimed to be obscene” under existing obscenity laws.

The state’s is “that to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest,” with prurient meaning overtly sexual.

Act 372 did not change the definition of obscenity, but it adds the loaning of library materials to the statute governing the possession and distribution of obscene material. Employees of public or school libraries that “knowingly” distribute obscene material or inform others of how to obtain it would risk conviction for a Class D felony, the law states.

The new law also changes the way that school libraries handle challenges to material, similarly to the law’s blocked section pertaining to public libraries. School librarians would create committees to review challenges, and if the committee does not relocate a book, the challenger could appeal the decision to the school board.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

Librarians across Arkansas are preparing in different ways for a new state law that is set to take effect next week and changes how libraries handle controversial material.

Some library systems have altered their existing material reconsideration forms in hopes of handling future book challenges smoothly and in compliance with the law.

Others have come to what they believe are reasonable conclusions about which local authorities will choose whether children can access certain books.

“One size does not fit all with public libraries, and that was not given consideration when this bill was put together,” said Judy Calhoun, regional director of the Southeast Arkansas Regional Library system, which covers Bradley, Chicot, Desha, Drew and Lincoln counties.

While library systems take steps to carry out the law, many librarians will be watching the outcome of a federal court hearing on Tuesday over a lawsuit that asks a judge to prevent from taking effect.

The law requires a committee of library staff selected by head librarians to review a challenged book or other material on the basis of their “appropriateness” for children and to vote publicly on whether to keep the material where it is currently shelved or relocate it to an area of the library that minors cannot access.

If a challenger disagrees with the library committee’s decision, city or county elected officials will have the final say on where material is placed.

All public library systems in Arkansas have existing material reconsideration policies and procedures that need to be altered to comply with Act 372. The existing policies have rarely been used throughout the state, and people who challenge books often want them to be removed rather than relocated.

Librarians statewide have expressed concerns that Act 372 will be used to discriminate against specific groups, such as LGBTQ+ people, but they have also said parts of the law are unclear and left to interpretation.

During the legislative session earlier this year, the sponsors of Act 372 repeatedly claimed that the policy would be straightforward.

Calhoun and several other library directors, including Nate Coulter of the Central Arkansas Library System, spoke against the bill before legislative committees.

Coulter and CALS are now two of 18 plaintiffs in . The lawsuit not only alleges viewpoint discrimination but also claims the law gives “unfettered discretion to quorum courts and city councils to decide whether materials are ‘appropriate’ without any definite procedural safeguards or standards.”

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks will conduct a hearing in the case Tuesday morning in Fayetteville. Some library systems have board meetings scheduled for later in the week, so their policy changes are not final, and the boards’ decisions might hinge on a decision from Brooks, library directors said.

Relocation concerns

Act 372 has brought statewide attention to the debate over whether anyone under 18 should be able to access content pertaining to racism, sexual activity and LGBTQ+ identities. Supporters of the law say this content amounts to “indoctrination” and is fundamentally inappropriate for children. Opponents contend the content reflects the community and that restricting access is censorship.

The legislation did not until it had been amended to say books would be relocated, not removed, if elected officials find them to be “obscene.”

Library directors and staff have repeatedly said libraries do not have segregated sections that children cannot access. Coulter said in May, when the CALS board , that relocating books under Act 372 would be “totally impractical to enforce,” even in one of the state’s largest library systems.

Additionally, regional, multi-county library systems allow patrons in one county to check out books in another county, so a quorum court decision to relocate a book in Faulkner County would not keep the book away from minors in Van Buren County, said John McGraw, the executive director of the library system covering those two counties.

“Even if I had a vault I could stick these things into — which I don’t, and I don’t know how I would do that — there’s nothing that prevents those materials from going to another county through the courier system,” McGraw said.

The Crawford County Library System moved children’s books with LGBTQ+ topics to a segregated “social section” at all five branches in December 2022. The library director at the time said relocating the books was a “compromise” after community members objected to their availability at multiple quorum court meetings.

Crawford County officials have cited Act 372 as a reason to keep the books segregated, so the county and its county judge, Chris Keith, are defendants along with the state in the CALS-led lawsuit against Act 372.

Additionally, three parents in the county in May against Keith, the quorum court, the library board and the interim library director for segregating the books, alleging “unlawful censorship” based on an “extreme and malevolent view of the Bible.”

A range of policy changes

Act 372 states that a book challenged under the law “shall be reviewed in its entirety and shall not have selected portions taken out of context.”

, the Saline County Library board of trustees updated the system’s challenge policy to align with this portion of the law by requiring people to “read, view, or listen to the entirety of the work” before filing a reconsideration request.

Meanwhile, Washington County Library System director Glenda Audrain said she and some library staff have preemptively reserved a block of time at the county courthouse once a month to handle book challenges, since they have to be heard in a public meeting.

Earlier this year, Audrain wondered if the library system would have to buy more copies of challenged books for quorum court members to read if an appeal against the book reached the court.

“It’d be sad to buy books that are possibly going to be hidden, or that there might not be that much demand for, since we have 15 quorum court members and eight libraries,” she said.

The law does not require libraries to provide elected officials with copies of challenged books, McGraw said, but it also does not require officials to read the books. simply says officials “shall review the information submitted to them” by the library committee.

“They don’t even have to look at the cover,” McGraw said.

The Faulkner-Van Buren Regional Library plans to incorporate legal precedent into its updated challenge process, since obscenity is a judicial term repeatedly referenced in Act 372 and brought up by those who want certain books to be relocated, McGraw said.

Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment, according to , a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that created the three-step “Miller test” for obscenity.

An item must meet all three criteria to be considered legally obscene:

If the entire work “appeals to the prurient interest” based on “contemporary community standards,” as judged by the average person;If it depicts or describes sexual behavior “in a patently offensive way”;If the entire work “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

McGraw provided the Arkansas Advocate with a draft reconsideration policy that specifically includes these criteria and also requires challengers to read the entire work. The Faulkner-Van Buren Regional Library board is expected to vote on the policy this week.

“During this whole conversation, there’s been this blurring of the lines over what counts as obscenity
 but there are no obscene books in the library,” McGraw said.

Workload and jurisdiction concerns

Library board members have historically been in charge of handling book challenges, but Act 372 requires library staff to handle them.

This could put an unprecedented amount of work on librarians since they still have to do their regular jobs, the five members of Faulkner County’s library board agreed at their April meeting. Van Buren County has its own library board, and each board sends representatives to a regional board overseeing the system.

McGraw said he and board members are bracing for an influx of book challenges if Act 372 goes into effect. The Faulkner County board agreed in May to remove the first five books in the queue of challenges from library circulation until the reconsideration process is complete.

Act 372 states that the elected officials of whichever entity provides the most funding to the library system are in charge of hearing appealed challenges.

However, the five counties in the Southeast Arkansas Regional Library system provide roughly equal funding across the board, Calhoun said.

She said she interprets Act 372 to mean a county quorum court’s decision to relocate a book only applies to the libraries in that county and that the same book does not need to be relocated in another county unless the quorum court says so.

Mike Rogers, director of the Northeast Arkansas Regional Library in Clay, Randolph and Greene counties, said he interprets the law the same way.

The funding clause of Act 372 will require the Jonesboro city council to hear appeals in the Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library system, which is funded by tax millage from both the city and the county, library director Vanessa Adams said.

Craighead County and Jonesboro voters in 2022 after protests over an LGBTQ+ book display and a transgender author’s visit to the library within the previous couple of years.

Adams has expressed frustration with both the funding cuts and the new law, the latter of which takes the placement of books “out of the library’s hands and puts the decision into the hands of elected officials, ignoring our expertise as trained experts,” she said in an email last week.

CALS covers Pulaski and Perry counties and is funded by tax millage in both counties, as well as the cities of Little Rock and Maumelle.

Taxes from Little Rock provide the majority of CALS’ funding, Coulter said, so the Little Rock Board of Directors would handle appealed challenges from all 14 library branches: nine in the city, four elsewhere in Pulaski County and one in Perry County.

This is an unusual amount of authority for a governmental body whose decisions usually apply only to the city of Little Rock, Coulter said.

“Obviously nobody envisioned, when [local governments] agreed to the ordinance to be part of the system, that the Legislature would come along years and years later and that one particular governmental entity would have some jurisdiction over the entire system,” he said.

He added that Act 372 was born from some groups’ dissatisfaction that the existing challenge process, which he said is “very thoughtfully and professionally done,” has rarely led to books being relocated or removed from libraries.

“The idea that this law creates something that libraries weren’t doing before is wrong and inaccurate,” Coulter said. “It’s actually [about] people not being happy with the outcomes of those processes and wanting a different arbiter of the outcome.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

The Arkansas Department of Education began accepting applications for a new school voucher program last week after the state Supreme Court lifted a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of the LEARNS Act.

The department opened the application window with little fanfare and has declined to answer the Advocate’s questions about the program or the application process amid the continuing litigation.

A legislative priority of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, created the Educational Freedom Account program that will provide up to 90% of the annual per-student public school funding rate for use on allowable expenses, including private school tuition. That’s roughly $6,600 per account for the 2023-24 school year, .

The program will be phased in over three years and absorbs the Succeed Scholarship Program, which provides about $7,400 for private school tuition for students with disabilities, foster children and military families.

Mary Catherine Paulus of Little Rock was told her seven-year-old son would be grandfathered into the new program as a current Succeed Scholarship recipient, but said there’s been a lot of confusion and uncertainty surrounding next steps.

Since the law was passed in March, Paulus said she’s reached out to the Arkansas Department of Education and The Reform Alliance, the nonprofit organization that administered the Succeed Scholarship, with questions about the process.

More recently, she’s learned information about enrolling her son in the program by communicating with other parents who are in a similar situation.

“It’s really confusing and for me, if I didn’t know any other parents in this world, I would be lost,” Paulus said. “Even with the help of The Reform Alliance, I mean they’re one organization and they’re helping a lot of families. So you really need a network of other moms and dads because different people are going to know different things.”

A lawsuit challenging the LEARNS Act’s effective date has added to the confusion of navigating a new application process. According to an from Education Secretary Jacob Oliva, the EFA program was set to launch June 1, but that was put on hold when a judge issued a temporary restraining order that .

The Arkansas Supreme Court . When asked on June 16 when ADE would launch the EFA program, a spokeswoman told the Advocate to refer questions about the LEARNS Act to the attorney general’s office because “we are currently engaged in an active lawsuit.”

On June 19, an attorney general spokesperson responded to emailed questions saying, “Following the Arkansas Supreme Court’s vacating of the Temporary Restraining Order, we reaffirm what we previously said: The Department of Education can get back to implementing LEARNS. Please see the LEARNS website at for the latest updates.”

Paulus received an email from the Reform Alliance on June 20 that the EFA portal was open. The email contained a link to the , but that same link wasn’t added to the homepage of the LEARNS website until Tuesday morning.

The email was confusing to Paulus, who said she had reapplied for her son through the old Succeed Scholarship process in the spring, per The Reform Alliance’s instructions. She later received clarification that her son’s application needed to be resubmitted through the new portal.

When Paulus completed the new application process last week and received confirmation, she said it was “really a great feeling.”

Paulus also decided to apply for her daughter who’s entering kindergarten this year once a father with a special needs child told her new applicants could apply, not just former Succeed Scholarship recipients.

In the first year of the program, eligible participants include students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, foster children, children of active duty military members, students enrolled in an “F”-rated school or school in need of Level 5 support, and students enrolling in kindergarten for the first time.

According to the application, students will be accepted on a rolling basis until Aug. 1. After that, students may be accepted on a one-off basis pending program funding availability.

ADE is also interested in becoming EFA participants. Schools that did not previously participate in the Succeed Scholarship Program must apply by Friday, June 30. Schools will be accepted on a rolling basis, and private schools will be immediately deemed as eligible once approved by ADE.

Student EFA participation in the 2023-24 school year will be capped at 1.5% of the current public school enrollment in the state, or 7,148 students. As of April, 760 students were enrolled in the Succeed Scholarship program, according to ADE.

Paulus’ son received the Succeed Scholarship for the first time during the 2022-23 academic year. When he started public school in 2021, he needed a higher level of support than the school could provide, Paulus said, so they switched to private school, where she said he’s thriving.

Raising children is expensive, Paulus said, especially children with special needs, and the Succeed Scholarship can alleviate some of the financial burden of families taking steps to support their children.

“We’re always in the car going to therapy and that’s time and that’s money for gas and babysitters to watch younger siblings if they can’t go,” she said.

Even though there has been confusion about the application process and glitches with the portal, Paulus said ADE and The Reform Alliance have done a decent job answering questions, considering the circumstances.

“Because of the lawsuit, something that was already kind of a tight timeframe, it just further truncated that and so everybody’s sort of scrambling to do their part, but there’s a lot of information to get out,” she said.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herbert Wright on June 20 heard oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the validity of the LEARNS Act’s emergency clause, which would allow it to go into effect immediately, instead of 91 days after the legislative session ends.

Wright said he would issue a ruling within two weeks. If the emergency clause is ruled invalid, the law wouldn’t go into effect until Aug. 1, again delaying implementation of LEARNS Act provisions like the EFA program.

The ruling could be appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which has a vacancy following . Gov. Sanders will be responsible for appointing a justice to fill Wynne’s seat until an election can be held.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

Arkansas is one of the top states where families struggle most to access quality child care, according to an Annie E. Casey Foundation report released Wednesday.

From 2020 to 2021, nearly 15% of Arkansas children from birth to 5 years old lived in families in which someone quit, changed or refused a job because of child care problems. Arkansas’ rate is among the five worst in the country.

The annual analyzes data from 16 indicators in four domains — family and community, economic well-being, education and health — and ranks states in overall child well-being. Arkansas earned an overall ranking of 43rd for the second year.

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a member of the KIDS COUNT network, provided a preview of the report last week. Executive director Keesa Smith said reviewing this data annually is important because it’s critical to make policy decisions from an informed place. 

“While I know that there are still hurdles that we are trying to get over as a state because of the impact of the pandemic, I think this data will show that we still have a long way to go in improving the lives of our children,” Smith said.

Arkansas’ child care challenges reflect a national trend of a lack of affordable and accessible child care that often causes parents to miss work or quit jobs, negatively affecting the workforce and the economy.

The country’s infant-toddler child care crisis costs $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue annually, according to a released in February. That’s more than double the cost reported in 2018.

President Joe Biden signed an in April aimed at finding ways to make child care more affordable and accessible.

These national reports are supported by the findings of the Arkansas Commission on the Status of Women, which issued in 2022. The challenge of finding quality care underlies many other challenges facing women in Arkansas because the burden of child care largely falls to women, chair Alison Williams said in December.

“COVID-19 exacerbated long-standing challenges, especially for those women in rural communities who may have already had difficulty accessing quality child care due to the clustering of child care in more heavily populated areas, transportation challenges or availability for second and third shift workers,” Williams said.

Although the annual KIDS COUNT report doesn’t typically look at child care, education policy director Olivia Gardner said it’s a crucial area of focus for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families because half of Arkansas’ kids are in nonparental care for at least 10 hours a week. Many will spend as much as 11,500 hours in child care and pre-K, and early childhood educators play an important role in shaping children’s brains, Gardner said. 

“Programs are struggling between the need to pay for the wages worthy of brain-building educators, while knowing all too well that Arkansas families are really struggling to pay for child care at the current market rates,” she said.

The hourly median wage for early childhood educators in Arkansas was $12.36 an hour, according to the report. Additionally, 50% of early childhood educators struggled to pay for basic necessities, and low wages contribute to a higher level of turnover in the field, Gardner said.

“It’s especially difficult to balance the budget of a child care center or a program when caring for infants and toddlers, and that’s because the costs are just higher for programs to care for younger children,” she said. “And so this contributes to why we’re seeing a lack of options for families.”

The annual price of center-based toddler care in Arkansas was about $6,800 in 2021 while family child care cost around $5,400, Gardner said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends child care not exceed 7% of a household’s budget, but most middle-income families are paying substantially more, she said.

However, Gardner said availability and accessibility are greater problems than affordability.

“Even though other states have much higher costs, Arkansas families are still struggling just as much to find child care, and that discrepancy highlights the need for increased availability and accessibility in Arkansas while still trying to keep costs affordable for parents,” she said.

Quality can also be an issue for parents if there’s not a place they feel comfortable leaving their child. Meeting minimum licensing standards, which target health and safety practices, doesn’t ensure quality components that are tied more closely to learning standards, Gardner said.

This is another example of how the quality of early childhood education is compromised by low teacher compensation, she said.

“Without state investment in child care programs, the solution for the number of spots available is left to child care businesses, which are then forced to either burden families with higher costs or to underpay their childcare workers,” Gardner said. “And Arkansas’ 22% child poverty rate
makes it clear that our families cannot afford to pay higher child care costs, nor can child care workers, who are often mothers themselves, afford to make less than they already do.”

Health

The 2023 KIDS COUNT report ranks Arkansas 42nd in health with 9.5% of births resulting in low-weight babies, 6% of children lacking health insurance and 37% of kids ages 10 to 17 being overweight.

AACF health policy director Loretta Alexander said they’re concerned about low-birthweight babies because they often have increased risk of infant mortality and challenging outcomes like developmental problems. The rate of low-birthweight babies is higher among Black women at 16.5%.

A key factor contributing to low birthweight is the pervasiveness of maternity care deserts in Arkansas, especially in rural areas, Alexander said. Defined as counties without any hospitals or birth centers offering obstetric care and without any obstetric providers, almost half of Arkansas counties are considered to be maternity care deserts, she said.

In 2021, nearly 72% of infants were born to women receiving adequate prenatal care in Arkansas. A potential policy solution to increase that percentage is providing immediate Medicaid coverage to women who are likely to qualify so they can begin prenatal care right away,  Alexander said.

Six percent of Arkansas children are uninsured, slightly above the national average of 5%. The number of uninsured Arkansas children reached a low of 4% in 2012 before starting to climb in 2018. Even with Medicaid termination suspended for three years during the public health emergency, 43,000 children remained uninsured in Arkansas, Alexander said.

In January, the Medicaid program identified more than 150,000 kids at risk of losing their coverage with the end of the public health emergency, she said, and in April, Medicaid renewals led to more than 29,000 kids losing health coverage.

Alexander said they expect more kids to continue losing coverage in the coming months before the Department of Human Services can sort out the problems of closing cases of kids who are still eligible.

Last week, DHS reported were dropped from the state’s Medicaid program in May because they did not provide required information to determine if they remained eligible for coverage. More than 40,000 Arkansans because their eligibility was left unknown.

“Going forward, the state could slow down the process of the renewals to ensure that those losing coverage truly are ineligible based on income rather than procedural reasons,” Alexander said.

Family and community

With a ranking of 46th, Family and Community is the domain where Arkansas ranked the lowest this year. This area’s indicators include teen births, children living in high-poverty areas, single-parent families and kids growing up in a household in which no one has a high school diploma.

Even though Arkansas has made incremental improvements over the last decade, the state continues to have a low ranking because it hasn’t kept up with the gains of other states, AACF Northwest Arkansas director Laura Kellams said.

For example, Arkansas still ranks last in teen births, even though the teen birth rate has dropped from 51 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19 a decade ago to 27 births per 1,000 teens in 2021.

States that perform best in this area have about a fifth of Arkansas’ teen birth rate, and they typically have laws requiring comprehensive sex education, they make contraception access easier, or both, Kellams said.

“Other states have made bigger gains over this last decade, and we would argue that one of the reasons for that is that Arkansas doesn’t require comprehensive sex education,” she said. “And if it is taught, the only requirement is that it emphasizes abstinence, not that the education be comprehensive or scientifically-based.”

An published last year indicated that Arkansas teens aren’t more sexually active than their peers in other states. The difference is a lack of information and lack of access to the most effective kinds of contraception, Kellams said.

Economics and education

Arkansas ranked 40th in economic well-being in this year’s report. The “significant and most alarming indicator” in this area is that 22% of Arkansas children live in poverty, AACF communications director Brooke Edwards said.

Arkansas is ranked 45th in child poverty, a factor that affects many of the other indicators examined by the report, Edwards said.

“For me, it’s the standard. If your child poverty rate is high, then you’re just not doing your job as a state,” she said.

Arkansas has consistently ranked in the bottom 10 states overall and on specific child well-being indicators, including this year ranking 44th for teens not in school and not working, and 43rd for 8th graders not proficient in math.

Ten percent of teens ages 16 to 19 are not attending school or working, while 81% of 8th graders scored below proficiency in math. That’s a decline from 73% in 2019.

Seventy percent of 4th graders scored below proficient in reading, dipping slightly from 69% in 2019. Gardner noted that while the state’s education scores were low prior to the pandemic as well, there is a nationwide downward trend in math and reading because the data is starting to reflect the effects of the pandemic.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

A bill filed in the Arkansas Legislature focused on students-athlete’s publicity rights looks like a win-win for all involved on the surface. But student-athlete advocates call foul on it.

by House Speaker Matthew Shepherd of El Dorado and Rep. RJ Hawk (R-Benton) would allow high school athletes who have been admitted to or signed a letter of intent at an Arkansas college “to enter into a contract and receive compensation for the commercial use of the student-athlete’s publicity rights.

The bill, Hawk said, attempts to rein in the “wild, wild West” of NIL — name, image and likeness — in high school sports that would allow student athletes to profit off of their image.

The NCAA began allowing college athletes to use NIL in 2021 to secure endorsements and sponsorships. But high school athletics have been a bit tricky.

The NIL became a focal point after former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and others sued the NCAA and won. They claimed the NCAA violated United States antitrust laws by not allowing college athletes to receive revenue generated from the use of their images in broadcasts and video games.

From that ruling, high school athletes want a chance to make money off of their images, too, especially as they have gained enormous popularity and thousands of followers on their social media platforms.

“Twenty-two states currently allow high school kids to profit off of NIL, including Tennessee and Louisiana,” Hawk said. “I had some constituents ask about it. We got in a room with the triple A (Arkansas Activities Association), some coaches and the NCAA and started looking at things.”

After filing HB 1649, Hawk and Shepherd filed , calling for a 14-month study on the issue.

The Arkansas Activities Association oversees high school sports. Its handbook states high school athletes may not accept gifts or compensation for “permitting his/her name, picture, or person to be used to advertise, promote or recommend a product, service, commercial venture or political venture.”

The association could not be reached for comment on this story.

‘Unnecessary and unfair’

“This bill [HB1649] is about control,” said Byron Jenkins of Arkansas Athlete Connection, a website that serves as a booking agent for Arkansas athletes. “NIL is about allowing the athlete to profit off of their own image whether they want to sell a T-shirt with their name and image on it, sell an autograph, whatever product they want to sell. That should be allowed.

“This bill [allows] foundations and boosters connected to a school to control the athletes’ deal for money by using their image.”

Jenkins pointed out that a high school musician, for example, can hold concerts, sell recordings and monetize themselves as social media influencers while still in high school. So could student artists and writers. Athletes cannot.

Student athletes “should be able to make money off of their name, image and likeness in high school without having to sign with any college,” Jenkins said. “Owning your own image is a basic human right.”

Jenkins also said that HB 1649 is unfair to students who never receive an offer from an Arkansas university yet receive one from an out-of-state college and sign a letter of intent with that university. That happens frequently, as every college is allowed so many spots to recruit from high schools.

Daniel Greene, an attorney in Syracuse, New York, and sports law professor at SUNY Cortland, agreed with Jenkins. He said the path Arkansas legislators are taking is particularly unique.

“High school NIL has mainly been addressed by the state’s high school athletic associations, but Arkansas seems to be one of the few instances where it may need to be handled by the state legislature,” Greene, an NIL expert, said. “The unique caveat here is that not all high school athletes in Arkansas would be eligible, only those that have been accepted into admission or signed an NLI (letter of intent) or other written agreement to enroll in a university or college with the state of Arkansas.”

This limitation seems “unnecessary and unfair to the other high school athletes in the state that may not be ready or able to commit to a college or even want to go to go to college or pursue athletics at the next level,” Greene said.

“Shouldn’t everyone have the right to exercise their right of publicity? No other state that permits high school NIL has this sort of cutoff, which seems a bit arbitrary,” Greene said.

‘You should be able to sell yourself’

Hawk said that questions like these are why he created a bill allowing for a legislative study on high school students’ publicity rights.

Greene pointed out that HB 1649 also has another questionable issue.

“This amendment would expressly permit a school’s ‘supporting foundations’ to facilitate and negotiate NIL deals,” he said. “This would be very controversial since it would potentially allow for NIL collectives and booster clubs to play a more active role in the NIL landscape, which is something the NCAA has been wary of in recent months. In fact, they recently sent out a memo reminding schools that the NCAA’s current rules prohibit schools from compensating athletes for their NIL, including entities acting on behalf of the institution.”

People watching NIL at a national level, Greene said, “believe this memo was targeted at what was developing at Texas A&M and their 12th Man+ Fund and University of Arkansas with their OneArkansas NIL group.”

Passing this law, Greene said, would put Arkansas law at odds with the NCAA rules if the bill is passed.

“This bill would also permit 501(c)(3) organizations to compensate athletes for the use of their NIL, which has been a controversial topic for some time as the number of charitable NIL collectives has grown,” he said

After House Bill 1469 was filed, Hawk and Shepherd filed House Bill 1679, which allows for a study to examine high school student-athletes’ publicity rights. That bill would also create a program for student athletes about contracts and compensation rather than each athlete cutting their own deals.

The study’s results by the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education would be filed on or before Oct. 31, 2024.

“We have to ask, do we want kids to go into the court system for a NIL system?” Hawk said. “I think the answer would be no. If the states around us have it, what is to stop their parents from moving to another state so their kids can make money? We would lose top talent.”

Jenkins argued that the talent always belongs to the student athlete. Many high school athletes, he said, already have what is considered as NIL value — production, exposure, influence and relationships.

“Those kids can influence people to buy a hat with their image on it, and that’s their image. They should not be forced to allow a college, boosters or a nonprofit to control it. They should be able to keep their brand going even if it starts in pee wee sports or elementary school. You should be able to sell yourself.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .