Friday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders was in Oklahoma to promote Arkansas LEARNS and talk about how her government is putting a lot of effort into education.
The National Summit on Education, put on by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, is a yearly meeting of education policymakers, state education chiefs, and advocates. She took part in a Q&A session there.
Protecting the mental health of kids across the state was what most of the talk was about. One of the best ways to do this, according to the governor, is to not let cell phones be used in school.
“Every piece of information out there will tell you how dangerous it is for kids to have smartphones and be able to use social media whenever they want,” Sanders said.
The governor said that her government formed a kind of relationship with Jonathan Haidt, an American author and social psychologist. His book is called “The Anxious Generation:
How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” The governor said she bought several copies of it for every Arkansas lawmaker and every governor in the country.
Sanders said she has looked at research that shows the rates of sadness, anxiety, and suicide went through the roof when cell phones were allowed in the classroom, while students’ attention and work dropped sharply.
She said, “It’s one of the things that I think is changing our society in a way that no one saw coming and, to be honest, no one was really talking about.”
According to other studies she mentioned, kids only play outside for four to five minutes on average, while they spend four to five hours on their phones.
Arkansas’s Education Department started giving funds at the start of the school year to help pay for devices that keep students’ phones out of sight while they are in class.
Governor told the crowd that she only thought a few school districts would sign up at first, but within six weeks, 75% of the districts had already offered to be a part of the program.
She said, “I think that shows how much people want things to change.”
The governor says her office is still waiting for information from a relationship with the University of Arkansas about this year’s program. However, the numbers from a district that banned phones last year are good news.
Gov. Sanders said that within the first year, drug use and access dropped by 51% in Bentonville schools that had put this in place. “Their students worked 77% harder than they did before.”
Gov. Sanders also answered questions from the crowd, and he talked about some parts of the LEARNS Act.
In the process of making the bill about job and technical education, she said, her government looked at the economic areas where the state could grow or where it is already in higher demand.
She says that 18 areas were chosen, and now every high school in the state has to offer a dual-track graduation in at least one of those areas.
The governor also said that she thinks the LEARNS Act makes it easier for the state to find and keep teachers.
She said that LEARNS not only raised a teacher’s starting salary, but it also gave them bonuses for things like getting certified in a needed subject, working in what is thought to be a tough area, or how well their students did in school.
Sanders told the crowd that being a parent had helped her get ready for this job. She said that each of her three kids learns in their own way and that every student in Arkansas should have the same chances to do well.
She said, “I know that not every child will learn the same way, need the same things, or do best in the same setting. If we want our children to be successful, we need to give them a variety of paths and chances.”
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