At David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri, the rule is that students must keep their cellphones out of sight during class. In reality, the teachers tasked with enforcing the rule are no match for teenagers’ “almost compulsive” need to be on their phones all the time, said science teacher Noelle Gilzow.
Gilzow confiscates offenders’ devices and drops them in a basket on her desk she calls the “phone jail.” But she knows that she is fighting a losing battle.
“I cannot compete with Netflix,” she said.
More than three-quarters of U.S. K-12 public schools prohibit non-academic cellphone use, according to a report from the 2021-2022 school year. But only 43% of public high schools have such a rule. And at many of them, like at Hickman High, the so-called bans are enforced weakly, if at all.
Last year, Florida became the first state to require all its public schools to bar students from using their phones during class. Now governors and legislators in at least a half-dozen other states are pushing their schools to follow suit — through persuasion or by law.
Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb just signed into law a bill that requires school districts to prohibit cellphone use during instructional time, with some exceptions. A similar bill is advancing in Oklahoma, and legislation has been introduced in Kansas and Vermont.
Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont has praised schools in his state that have restricted cellphone use, and he has introduced legislation that would direct the state board of education to adopt a model policy.
“Social media is often anti-social, and too much smartphone makes you stupid,” Lamont said in his State of the State address this year.
In Utah, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox in January sent a letter to school leaders throughout the state urging them to get cellphones out of class.
“Placing cellphones in backpacks or lockers during class time allows students to give their undivided attention to lessons, to fully participate in discussions and to build relationships with their peers,” Cox wrote in an opinion piece published in the Deseret News. “Our students deserve every advantage and removing cellphones from learning time is one proven way we can help our children succeed.”
Cox and other proponents of such measures cite research showing that even the presence of a cellphone is a distraction, and they argue that removing them from classrooms will boost academic performance, reduce bullying and improve students’ mental health.
Not surprisingly, many students are loath to give up their phones. But much of the pushback against phone-free classrooms comes from parents, who want to be connected to their children throughout the day, especially if there is an emergency.
Eliminating distractions
To Indiana Republican state Sen. Jeff Raatz, one of the lead sponsors of the proposed ban in his state, the argument for taking phones out of the classroom boils down to one word: distraction.
He was speaking about civics at a Henry County high school last fall, he recalled in an interview, when he noticed the students were unusually attentive. It took him awhile to realize why.
