With the local school district still waiting to hear how lawmakers will deal with education funding this year, we asked Board President Joe Arness why the cost of education continues to rise…
Arness: “It’s an interesting thing about being on the school board, and I have been here for a while, the one phrase that I dislike more than any other phrase is, ‘Back when I was in school…’ because everybody has their story, and so do I. We all do. What it used to be like in the good old days. Well, it’s not the good old days anymore.”
Arness said parents and the community wouldn’t stand for students learning from a chalkboard in a log building any more. He says students today are living in a different world than their parents and grandparents…
Arness: “I expect my 6th grade grandson to be able to fix my smartphone for me. He wasn’t born knowing how to do that, he acquired that and a lot of it has to do with the environment around the school, because that is where we are headed. That technological direction. Kids need to be around that, need to learn that. That is expensive. It’s something that this District tries to keep them up with.”
Arness said the fundamentals of education are still the same, but in modern schools, students are required to learn a very different set of skills.
