Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Arkansas Week.

I'm Chris Cain.

In the third week of the Arkansas General Assembly, some key priorities for the governor were introduced, including a work requirement for Medicaid recipients.

And we'll get into that, including a challenging forecast for Arkansas farmers in just a little bit.

But first, on what was declared mental Health Day.

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke Wednesday at the state capitol about cell phones in schools and her goal of eliminating them from Bell to bell.

While touching on the success of pilot programs already in place, Sanders encouraged policymakers to pass a recently filed bill that would ban cell phones in all public schools in the state.

Joining us is one of the sponsors of that legislation, State Senator Tyler Dees, a Republican from Siloam Springs.

Senator, thank you for taking the time to join us today.

And please share.

First, what would make you want to champion this proposed law?

Well, I appreciate it, Chris.

Thanks for letting me come on today and talk about this very important piece of legislation that we've been working on for well over a year now.

I can tell you I have the joy to represent northwest Arkansas.

I'm the furthest legislator from the Capitol, but I've heard from all over the state, from parents, from from administrators, from superintendents, from teachers about the importance and the need for this piece of legislation.

We're calling it the Delta Belle No Cell Act.

And really what this is, is a response to the overwhelming data that we're seeing where our kids are really being harmed.

And our kids deserve every advantage we can give them.

We have a constitutional charge, provide fair and adequate and a great education for our students.

And so what this does is it's a cell phone prohibited ban from bell to bell from the start of the day to the end of the day so that students can really focus so they're not distracted, so they're not being bullied, so they're not being constantly sent.

The communication and notifications from social media and from other students and so they can focus and achieve success and performance in the classroom.

I mentioned there has been a pilot program already in place.

Can you give some background on what that involved and what have been the results so far?

Sure.

Well, I'll tell you, Chris, you know, my my family, this is direct for for me.

I mean, I'm a young father with three kids of of school age children that this impacts directly.

And we've seen the need for this even in our own own home.

But the pilot program that the governor launched this last year was just such such a great step forward.

In fact, we had great participation from schools across the state.

The majority of schools signed up.

And the data we're receiving from that pilot program is proving that this is working.

When we limit cell phones in schools, the data comes back and shows us that missed assignments go down, that engagement goes up, that disciplinary issues go down, that teachers feel heard and they can actually do their job.

We have statistics that show unbelievable response from this, and that's what's led to us to step in with the legislation this session.

Chris, I want to tell you that this is actually well received.

You know, 73% of voters say we've got to do something about this.

I'm referencing the Manhattan Institute survey that shows that we've got almost half of Gen Z adults, 18 to 27 year olds looking back at their experience, who said, we wish Tik Tok and Snapchat had never been invented because it was completely deteriorating.

Our time and our focus and really our mental and social emotional health.

And so that's what this bill aims to do, is to arm and protect our students and arm our school districts with just another tool to help them do that.

As with everything, there is context.

And we did see there are some exceptions that could be used in this instance and in this bill.

What would those exceptions be?

Sure.

You know, the people that sent me here, Chris, they've sent me here to work on common sense legislation.

And that's what this does.

We want to we want to make the bill to be very usable and relatable.

And so what this does is it provides exceptions for for students with medical documented needs.

We know there's some students that need to be tracking their medical alerts.

And so it does not prohibit any of that.

We also know that there's need there's special needs with some students.

And so we've made exceptions there.

We've also made exceptions for for times of emergency.

We know in the very, very small rarity of cases, there's unfortunate instances in schools where there's a fire or tornado or, God forbid, an active shooter.

And so we've made carve outs where there's emergency clauses where exceptions can be made for devices.

And so we've tried to think through and work with with multiple school districts across the state to make sure that there's policies as well well intended.

I also want to say, Chris, that we've intentionally made this to be full of local control measures.

You know, we never want to be heavy handed.

We want to make sure that we're providing insight.

We've listened to to the school districts.

They've asked for help.

That's why we're that's why we're doing this.

But we're also saying, you know what, Each school district in the bill, it says you're you're involved to make the policy and execute the policy that fits your school district.

So, for example, you know, you get to decide school district if you want to have a power system or a locker system or often a way away in your backpacks, you get to implement.

However, this this fits best for your district.

Same with student violation policy.

Whatever makes sense for your school district, you get to decide.

And so we want to put a lot of of the oversight and the ability to execute back in the hands of the local control.

And certainly for months, the governor has been sharing concerns about cell phones and kids, citing a bestselling book, The Anxious Generation.

And this.

Has there been much pushback against this?

We know there are two sides to every bill and every story.

But like you said, it seems like overwhelmingly there has been a lot of support.

But what has been any pushback if there has been?

Well, I'll tell you, you know, you referenced and anxious Generation by Jonathan Hite, and I've had the privilege of going to our schools in my in my district, in our state with with the author of Anxious Generation.

Jonathan, I and we've been able to speak directly with teachers, with administrators, with students.

And there's been overwhelming support.

I mean, this is this is a 9010 plus issue.

But, you know, some of the pushback we do hear is, you know what?

Why doesn't this bill address private schools and why does it it address home schools?

Well, I can tell you, Chris, that that's not our jurisdiction.

We have a constitutional charge, our legislature, to make sure we provide a fair and adequate education for our public school students.

And it's not our job to to to implement policy decisions for private schools and definitely not for home schools.

In fact, the Learns Act in that last session provided opportunities for for students and for parents and families to partake with their own tax dollars.

But that didn't mean a green light for the state to be involved in what goes on in private schools and how they run their schools.

Or definitely not home schools.

But I can tell you, I have not found one private school that doesn't have something very similar to this.

This policy already on the books.

But that's some of the pushback we've received.

But I can tell you it's overwhelmingly supported bipartisan, supported across our legislature as well.

State Senator Tyler Dees at a Siloam Springs state Senator, thank you so much for your time today and we'll see you right after this.

Stay with us.

Welcome back to this week's program.

Joining us now for more on the proposed cell phone ban and other recent activity in the legislative session are reporters Andrew DeMello with the Associated Press and independent journalist Steve Bronner.

Welcome, both of you to the program.

But thanks for taking time out of your busy days to join us.

And Andrew, let's get started with you.

Joining us virtually this today.

And I think this is something that has gotten some attention nationally as well.

Tell us more about your reaction to this cell phone proposal.

Yeah, and thank you for having me.

The cell phone proposal from Governor Sanders, this is part of what's really been kind of a growing bipartisan movement that you're seeing among several states.

Eight states right now have similar bans, and you're seeing states controlled by both parties really endorsing similar measures.

This is probably the only policy proposal where you'll see a Governor Sanders and Gavin Newsom, California, on the same page.

And a big part of this is concerns that we're seeing in the discussion about mental health impacts that screen time and social media have on it's right now and also concerns about what it does in the classroom.

And seeing several other states where there are similar measures are being pushed right now.

In addition to this, also got multiple states that are encouraging or trying to incentivize this, if not flat out.

Reporter and Steve, i know this is something you followed with one particular school district who implemented something similar even before this bill was filed.

That's right.

Bentonville west high school started this about two years ago.

We had the pilot program the past year where about half the school districts have had students locking up their phones in pouches.

Bentonville, where we started this two years ago, County was one of the guinea pigs of this.

And and they had lost access with it Compared to the previous year of verbal and physical aggression, offenses fell 57% person electronic device offenses where they had a cellphone we're not supposed to went down 94%.

And drug related offenses such as THC vapes went down 51% and that was because the theory was because students weren't able to meet up, texting, meet up.

So the difference between that and this is what was proposed is that Bentonville West did allow the students to use cell phones between classes and at lunch and even in an instructional time at times that gave teachers some flexibility.

This legislation would not give that flexibility for instruction.

It does have some exemptions, but not for instruction.

If I did specifically strikes it out of the code, but it will be very popular.

I don't see a whole lot of pushback.

Bentonville West did not have much pushback.

Again, the lack of any kind of flexibility, there might be an issue for some, but this will be a popular proposal.

Some interesting data there, certainly from some of those pilot programs.

We'll see if that follows when it goes statewide, if it passes.

Now to another topic.

It's making some waves, not only here in Arkansas, but nationally as well.

Governor Sanders wants to implement work requirements for some Medicaid recipients.

And before we discuss this, let's go ahead and watch a clip of the governor making her announcement this past week on Tuesday.

The requirement is simple If you want to receive free health care paid for by your fellow taxpayer.

Able bodied working age adults have to work, go to school, volunteer or be home to take care of their kids.

220,000 able bodied working age adults in Arkansas receive free health care courtesy of the Arkansas taxpayer.

It cost us more than $2.2 billion each year and growing.

Of those recipients, estimates show that nearly 90,000 have no job.

Most Arkansans work hard to pay for their health insurance.

But many of these healthy adults don't work at all and receive it for free.

That is not how the system should work.

Andrew, I want to go ahead and start with you because we've seen something like this attempted in the last decade.

Give us some background on this.

What happened last time and what makes this time different?

Yeah.

You know, this is not the first time Arkansas has tried work requirements or the Medicaid expansion under the ACA.

Hutchinson.

The state had a similar program and about a dozen people lost coverage under that.

And eventually that program was blocked by federal judge and also by the Biden administration over concerns about the way it was implemented.

There are people able to connect with the infrastructure in place for it and also achieved it is going to be all different way.

It's.

But I think you're going to see some of its name clients come up.

But also coming at it from politically more favorable environment for these kind of proposals you've got the Trump administration in right now and generally some of this idea and Republicans in both the both houses of Congress and there was talk about expansion.

And the governor, Steve, said that she's not going to do away with expansion here, as in other states.

That seems to be something that they're angling for the know the private option as it was originally called.

And now our our home is totally baked into the Arkansas health care system.

It would be very, very difficult to try to stop that.

This was tried before under the Hutchison administration.

It did have a lot of hiccups, a lot.

And there was a little bit of bureaucracy and not that many people ended up going to work.

But what the administration is saying is we've learned some lessons.

You know, there won't be a hard cut off of benefits.

There'll be a lot of coaching, a lot of working with recipients.

So that's certainly the principal.

It remains the same.

But will the execution be different?

That will be what will determine how successful this is.

And again, the legal issues.

Does it get through the court cases that will inevitably follow?

Steve, I want to now discuss a story that you wrote this past week on a controversial bill that a Senate panel advanced this past week that's being called an anti affirmative action bill.

The bill's sponsor, Dan Sullivan, said this is similar to a bill he tried to pass a couple of years ago.

So what are the details of this bill that people should know about?

Well, let's pass the Senate with 24 votes now in the House.

So basically, it would end discrimination and preferential treatment in race, in situations with race or gender, with some exceptions for gender.

But it's basically an anti action bill, affirmative action bill, where prefaces that would benefit a certain race in particular, like, for example, programs that encourage or provide scholarships for poor African-American teachers to teach in African-American places.

This would make that this would expand the population so that basically it would not just target any kind of different racial group.

So, again, going ahead, it was passed very easily in the Senate.

Democrats were opposed as long as as well as one Republican, Senator Allen Clarke, has said, basically, I like it in principle, but there are times when you might need to do something.

For example, African-American students, especially black males, tend to do better statistically when they have a black male, when they have a black teacher.

And he said we might need to be able to maintain that.

And this bill would make that probably something that would not be legal.

Andrew, is this something that it passed the House, as Steve just mentioned, or simply passed the Senate?

Is this something that you're hearing will pass the House as well, or will there be more opposition on that side than there was on the Senate side?

Well, you know, that remains to be seen.

Two years ago, it got through the Senate, so it's not surprising it get through again.

The House is where it faced a lot of resistance, a lot of questions, and not just from Democrats, but also from some Republicans who are concerned about the broader impact they have.

The other issue is also the concerns that were raised during the debate that Senator Clarke Tucker had raised some concerns about.

We it doesn't define preferential and the impact that could have for the way it's applied.

And I think that's going to be something that you're going to see a lot in terms of discussion on this and whether or not there need to be any.

So I think this is where we're going to be watching it very closely to see what happens.

The governor has not ruled whether orchestration of this.

And that's also something we're going to be watching as well here.

And Steve, before we let you guys go, this has been a session where we haven't had yet a learns a prison reform, a net metering.

You know, this seems to be one where it's a slower roll, so to speak.

But we know that every session has you know, it's a set of legislation that will cause some stairs, this one already causing one.

Anything on the horizon to be watching for in the next couple of weeks that people should be aware of?

I'd watch higher ed.

I think there will be a proposal.

There will be a proposal from senator from Governor Sanders of a basically alarms light for higher ed.

Last session was revolutionary transformative for for education.

Whether you like it or not.

It was humongous changes for K through 12 education.

This session they will be less so, but there will be significant changes for higher ed.

The funding formula will encourage workforce related classes, technical certificates, that kind of thing.

So watch for higher ed.

All right.

That is all the time we have for today.

But thank you so much.

Andrew DeMello at the Associated Press, an independent journalist.

Steve, Brian, we know both of you are so busy right now with the active legislative session.

We appreciate your insights and all the details you can share with all our viewers out there.

So thank you again for your time.

All right.

Coming up next, more of Arkansas.

Stay with us.

Welcome back.

Arkansas farmers are struggling, simply put.

And despite record yields last year, many growers ended 2024 in the red and some of the lucky ones just barely broke even.

You have a Division of agriculture reports that with continued high input prices, low commodity prices and the possible resumption of a trade war with China this year will likely prove just as challenging.

Joining us to discuss this and much more is extension Rice agronomist Jared Haki.

Jared, thank you for joining us remotely.

As we know that you have been going all around the state of Arkansas right now to gather feedback and have conversations with growers.

What can you share with us as you continue to extend out and try an outreach and talk with these folks who are struggling and find out what you all could do to help them at this point in time, the sentiment and the attitude is as poor as I've seen it in my career.

Unfortunately, as you've already touched on, the the direction is from an economic standpoint, is is going the wrong direction with the the income that we're struggling with.

Again, it's a good thing that we did have excellent yields in the 2024 season because it turned out that we needed every bit of it.

We're we're going through a period now where we certainly had concerns back to 2022 is is our input.

The prices of our inputs began to rise dramatically as so many other inputs did.

Everyone can feel it at home and certainly still feeling it.

But as those rose, we at least at that time did see some increase in commodity prices to help offset some of those increases.

We've unfortunately now reached a situation where while some of those input prices have improved a little bit, the prices growers are receiving for these crops have dropped dramatically in comparison.

So we've reached an inverse where there's not a clear direction to turn in terms of making profitability in the likelihood of making it to another year of farming.

Some farmers had decent yields, but they're still deciding to throw in the towel.

What will it take to keep people in the industry even after what is perceived as being a successful year with their crop?

At this point there are a lot of moving parts to this.

There there's got to be some recovery of commodity prices.

We're obviously not in the short term going to see additional drops in our input prices.

So, you know, coming from the lending side or providing some more leverage in that way, improvement in interest rates being offered or again, commodity prices increasing is what it's going to take.

And we're we're on the threshold of of losing a sizable percentage of growers going into this year.

A lot of those decisions haven't yet been made.

With this being delayed, hoping anything might improve situations, but a number are electing to right now early exit from the agriculture industry, with the common refrain there being I have no choice but to get out now.

I can't afford to lose everything I've worked for to this point in my life and career.

I'm going to have to get out now.

And that's that.

That's a pretty dark and daunting time to be going into again.

We've had struggles over recent years, but this is this is on a whole new level, not not seen or discussed for decades.

Any other external factors affecting farmers and growers out there, energy prices, anything else that they're adding on or piling on in a sense, along with some of the things you've already mentioned?

Well, it's always important to remember that we compete on the world market and there are always a lot of without getting overly specific about some of the things going on around the world where we do find ourselves continuing to compete, we hold ourselves to a very high production standard in in the way that we regulate ourselves and our production practices and our management.

And that can at times lead to us having higher production cost than those we're competing with around the world.

And that puts us in a in a difficult position increasingly so now, is we can be undercut by other production in other locations, other countries around the world.

And that that continues to be another point of emphasis, particularly for me on the rise.

Certainly I'm speaking across commodities in crops, soybeans, corn, cotton as well.

But but especially on the right side, we produce Arkansas produces 50% of the rice in the United States, but we're a very small percentage of the overall rice produced in the world.

And we're we're good at what we do and we are efficient.

But our our standards of production do lead to us having higher priced rice relatively.

And that's becoming, again, an increasing struggle to compete 16 plus billion dollar industry largest in the state, the ag sector.

What needs to happen with the farm bill being worked on and being discussed by Senator John Boozman?

Congressman Rick Crawford locally here having big hands in this.

But what needs to be done with that bill to help this vital part of our state's economy?

It's it's dated to a point now the the world we we were living in in 2018.

The the last time we had a truly new farm bill is is just not the same world of agriculture and ag economy that we were living in at that time.

So it's really updates to the the fundamental workings of agriculture in general, but certainly from our side, from from road crop production, agriculture to to bring some of the the commodity price references, things like that to where we are today are again, total input costs for crops and what our breakeven prices are for crops and the prices we're seeing of commodities today, all of that needs to be brought up to date to where we are today and seemingly going forward so that so many of those existing mechanisms that are there within the farm bill will work as intended going forward.

But it's just become dated to this point.

So we need those critical updates to reflect today's reality.

97% of farms in Arkansas family owned.

This has traditionally been an heirloom industry passed down generation to generation.

What's going to happen to the industry itself if families are getting out of this and it's not being passed down anymore?

So that's that's an interesting development.

We year after year, again, we're still talking farmed by family farms, but so much of our farmland today is rented, is rented from again, typically from, you know, those who did at one time farm, but the majority of it is rented ground.

So that's an increasingly consistent expense, is that those who remain actually active farming are having to do it on an annual basis and it really owning less and less of the land that they operate on.

So obviously there's not an easy fix to that, but that's a continually increasing cost in production.

Agriculture, again, as the industry is, the industry shrinks and more people move away from the agriculture industry and out of the rural areas of Arkansas.

So it continues to be a struggle.

So it's really asking those who are still here to pick up and farm and rent more ground, putting even more strain on those operations to make the math work to continue in the business.

University of Arkansas Extension Rice agronomist Jared Haki.

Jared, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule.

Safe travels as you continue to make your way around the state.

We'll talk with you next time.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

All right.

That is it for Arkansas Week.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.