OKLAHOMA CITY – Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders was in Oklahoma Friday, touting Arkansas LEARNS and speaking on her administration’s emphasis on education.
She appeared in a Q&A session for the Foundation for Excellence in Education’s National Summit on Education, an annual gathering of education policymakers, state education chiefs and advocates held by ExcelinEd.
Most of the talk was centered on protecting students’ mental health across the state. The governor said one of the best ways of doing this is keeping cell phones out of the classrooms.
“If you look at every piece of data that is available, there’s not a single one that will not tell you how dangerous it is for kids to have smartphones and unlimited access to social media,” Sanders said.
The governor said her administration entered into a partnership of sorts with American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt. The governor said she purchased several copies of his book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” for every Arkansas state legislator and the governors of every state across the nation.