Arkansas consistently ranks near the bottom in national education outcomes, but if there were a scoreboard for performative Republicanism, last week suggests we’d be sitting comfortably at number one. 

Instead of addressing the chronic underfunding, teacher shortages and resource gaps that have plagued our public schools for years, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has chosen a different priority: launching Turning Point USA’s Club America chapters in high schools across the state.

On March 11, Sanders stood alongside Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk at the Governor’s Mansion to announce a statewide push for the conservative student‑led program. 

The proclamation formalizes Arkansas’s support for the organization and celebrates what Sanders described as a rising wave of “young leaders” across the state.

But beneath the photo ops and patriotic branding lies a more troubling issue with our state’s government. 

At a time when Arkansas students need stronger literacy programs, better‑paid teachers, updated materials and safer classrooms, the administration is instead championing a political club. It’s hard not to notice the problem. 

For a governor who has spent the past year promoting everything and anything except the structural improvements our schools desperately need, this latest move feels less like leadership and more like a descent into indoctrination on the highest level. 

But what about indoctrination? For many Republicans in Arkansas, indoctrination is when schools teach sex-ed or have pride flags in classrooms. 

Well, for those red-hearted Arkansans, indoctrination has many colors, not just blue.

First, it was the Ten Commandments in classrooms, a move that had some support, but that no one was actually asking for. Then came the AI Data Center, backed by big companies, but again, not something everyday Arkansans needed. 

And now, the government has its hands deep in our high schools, making an announcement that felt like watching a magician reach into a hat, with everyone hoping for a bunny, but instead, out comes a rotten apple. 

Yet this new club arrived amid a wave of statewide support, largely due to admiration for the late Charlie Kirk. But through the lens of government overreach, two things can be true at once.

 A new club for high‑school students to get involved in is something most people would agree is a positive development. But the government being the one to create and promote it is something else entirely.

It’s obvious to point out Gov. Sanders would never announce a Young Democrats club, yet she had no hesitation promoting a club that, even during its announcement, felt clearly uninclusive to the thousands of high school students who come from different religions, races and cultures. It almost feels like a club Arkansas used to be known for – and I’ll give you a hint, it starts with the first letter of Erika’s last name.

Kirk made that argument unmistakably clear during her time in the Governor’s Mansion, so clear that the opinion on it barely needs debate. “Don’t let anyone disenfranchise you because you’re a young man, especially a young white male man. Don’t ever let anyone talk down to you,” she said.

And for anyone who might argue this is taken out of context, the real question is: what context would make that better?

Club America is not only useless to the actual needs of our school system, but it actively creates separation between students. And the audacity to name it after a country known for being a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities only makes it more disappointing to the thousands of students across Arkansas who deserve better.

Students deserve a school that isn’t at constant risk of gun violence, a school that actually supports their educational needs and a school that includes every student, especially those who aren’t even old enough to vote on the political ideology being pushed at them.

If Club America is truly about “honest conversation” or “supporting students,” then the government should focus on doing exactly that, not inserting partisan ideology into classrooms. Because that is indoctrination. And anyone who voted red should recognize that indoctrination, no matter the party, is not something to be in favor of.