WSJ What’s News - Cellphone Bans in Classrooms: Your Questions Answered

Episode Date: September 15, 2024

More and more U.S. districts are limiting or banning phone use in schools, including some of the largest districts in the nation. But, should cellphones be banned in schools? And can these bans actually be enforced? WSJ education reporter Sara Randazzo answers your questions on who’s for and who’s against these prohibitions and what we might see in classrooms. Charlotte Gartenberg hosts. Further Reading Schools Lock Up Cellphones to Keep Students Focused  This School Took Away Smartphones. The Kids Don’t Mind.  Schools Want to Ban Phones. Parents Say No.  A Teacher Did All He Could to Keep Kids Off Phones. He’s Quitting in Frustration.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Charlotte Gartenberg for the Wall Street Journal. This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. This week, more and more US schools and districts are limiting or banning phone use in all classrooms. But should cell phones be banned in schools? And can these bans actually be enforced? You've got questions, let's get to it. They buzz. They buzz.

They ping. They ring. And it's the middle of class! A number of states, including Indiana, South Carolina, and Florida, have passed laws that bar student cell phone use either during class or for the entire school day. Some districts are following suit. This summer, Los Angeles voted to ban cell phone use during the entire school day, while others are pulling back from previous plans. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently pressed pause on a citywide cell phone ban in schools.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, 72% of high school teachers said kids being distracted by cell phones was a problem in their classrooms. While some people argue that taking cell phones out of classrooms is necessary to improving learning environments, others argue the opposite. Smart phones are a part of our lives, and kids shouldn't be parted from such an essential tool. Here to walk us through some of these bans is Wall Street Journal education reporter Sarah Randazzo. Sarah, before we get into the arguments for and against, I want to start with what are

some of the bans that are in effect this school year? Yeah, so it's been really interesting to watch because cell phone bans really feel like this snowball rolling down a hill this year. Last year when we started the school year, no one was really talking about this. And then as spring came around, we started seeing more and more conversation, more and more advocacy groups and, and bands starting to get into effect. And these happen at both the state and the district level. So at the state level, we've seen both laws being passed and kind of model policies and states that have both of those include Virginia,

Ohio and Alabama. And then there's also at the district level, policies going into effect. Los Angeles unified. They voted to have a ban going into effect later this year. New York City said they're weighing one, but haven't done anything yet. Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is located, it's one of the biggest school districts in the country. They're putting phones in pouches for their older kids. So it's really spreading all over the country at this point.

So these are complete bans, no smartphones during school hours at all, or these are no smartphones in classrooms. So some places are saying no phones during instructional time, but some districts are going further and saying no phones from the second you walk in this building till the second you leave.

And there's a bunch of ways to do it. Sometimes you can do kind of an honor system and say that phone needs to be in the backpack and if we see it we're going to take it or put it in the front office that kind of thing or the more extreme method is we're putting it in a pouch that's locked at the beginning of the day and you can unlock it at the end of the day or there's versions of that within each class period where it's locked up in class but then you can have it during passing periods at lunch. So there's many ways to do this and that's where a lot of the nuance and detail will really come out this year. Well, we got a number of calls arguing for these bans, particularly from teachers and administrators.

One of those people was Peter Murphy, who's a dean of students at a charter school in San Antonio, Texas. Banning cell phones from the classroom is a great policy. You enable the kids to focus on the book or the problems in front of them in a wholesome way that is really hard for them to do and for you to help them to do as a teacher if they have a constant distraction available in their pocket. Sarah, help us flesh out the pro-cell phone ban side of this argument. What do experts say about phones distracting students in class? So there's a few big arguments in favor of the bans.

One is that the same as we know as adults, they're massively distracting. There's a common sense media study that found students get a median of 237 phone notifications per day. So think of, you know, 200 pings. That includes these long iMessage conversations, any Instagram notification, anything else they're doing. It adds up and every ping is a distraction. Also phones are utilized for really bad behavior in schools. There's a lot of bullying. There's these online websites where you can basically anonymously post gossip and and stray threads about people and those are really harmful. People set up fights and record fights on the phones. I've heard of crazy things happening

in bathrooms of people putting phones over the stall door to like record people just to be a menace. So there's that bucket of it as well. Then there's also mental health arguments people make that social media could have a negative consequence on students' mental health. So just removing it altogether can help free their mind for school. So there's really arguments in a few different directions. So Sarah, we had one listener call in and argue for phone bans, saying that we should have phone bans because phones are addictive. And then we had another listener named Alexander Glazer, who's actually a high school teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, call in and say, we should not ban them.

Here's what he had to say. The banning on them is reactionary and goes a bit too far. I think students need to know how to manage the use of technology reasonably within a workspace as digital technology is only increasing in the workspace beyond education. Part of the role of education is to prepare students for the real world. So what are some of the arguments that you've been hearing against banning cell phones in classrooms and schools? Yeah, some of the biggest pushback

is actually driven by parents who want to have constant contact with their children, especially during an emergency. There's a lot of fear over if there's an actual lockdown situation, what if I can't reach my child, that kind of thing. It's also really interesting when you talk to teachers, a lot of what kids are doing on their phone is often communicating with their parents. So teachers want to say like put your phone away, but then they're like, oh, I'm calling my mom.

My dad is trying to reach me. Some other arguments are that they actually can be useful tools in class, especially English language learners. I've heard people say there's really good translation apps, things they could be doing to help translate or even as an educational tool like the calculator, a notes feature. So there are some classroom purposes that could be useful as well. Well, it's interesting that you should bring up what makes it sort of hard to enforce because we're going to get a little bit more into how and how well are these bands working? And is there a path to more balanced use of cell phones in classrooms? That's after the break.

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Contact a licensed TD insurance advisor to learn more. All right, Sarah, it feels like enforcement presents a bit of a roadblock or at least kind of a point of contention. Listener Ryan Morse in Annapolis, Maryland called in and told us this. Teachers have been handcuffed by this. Cell phones in the classroom, parents want to have a right to be able to contact their children, which pretty much handcuffs the teacher from being able to tell the student that they need to put the phone away. The only threat you would normally think of is, oh, I'll call your mother.

And if your mother or your father or whoever is texting you in the middle of class, then that's out the window. Sarah, this is exactly what you mentioned before the break. You know, kids using their phones to text their parents in the middle of class. But what are some of the other obstacles to enforcement? Yeah, so what I hear a lot from teachers is that if it's not a uniform policy really across the school

and even better across the district, it's very hard for them to enforce it because if students you know that in the classroom next door they can do whatever they want on their phones, it's really hard for a given teacher to be the bad guy and they say they could just spend their whole day policing these phones and you know they should be doing teaching and other things. Teachers who are in favor of the bans really like when there's a strong district policy because they can point upward and say hey this isn't me this is the This is the policy across the board, guys. Like we have to do this. I also have heard that the phones tend to creep back out as the year goes on. Even with a strong

policy. There's a school in Florida I spoke to in Orange County, Florida, where they had this really strong what they call bell-to-bell policy. No phones at all, even during lunch and passing periods. And they put it on the kids to just keep them in the backpacks. And I spoke to a student who said, yeah, it's been amazing for culture. We've actually been talking to each other. It's been great. But even she said, yeah, as the year's gone on, I've started texting at lunch again. And so I think there is this kind of creep that's difficult.

And then a lot of it just comes down to classroom management. Teachers just have a lot on their plate, a lot to manage in the classroom. And so cell phones can just be one more burden. And sometimes they can just lose the will to fight is the way to describe it, if it's just becoming such a constant issue. It's true. I do remember when I was teaching

and my students who were college students would text on their phones. They put the phone under their desk as though, I can see you. I know what you're doing. And so it's hard to be constantly monitoring that and all the other things at once. I can understand that. So some schools and districts have had limits, if not outright bans, in effect for a little while.

In your reporting, how is that going? Yeah, so I mentioned the school in Orange County, Florida. I spoke to the principal and a couple of students there. And people had really positive things to say for the most part. The principal loved it and said, yeah, we see kids throwing a football around at lunch again or actually sitting and talking to each other.

A lot of places report that at lunch, a group of friends will literally be sitting around a table all just looking down at their phones or even texting each other or doing some kind of online communication while sitting around the table together. So when you take that away, kids are actually engaging again. And in the classroom, teachers say, it's great focusing again. There is just, it's not going to be a quick overnight fix.

There's a lot of culture change. I'm sure a lot of kids are feeling anxious without their phones. So I think it's going to take a while to shift culture away from them if this is something schools really are committed to doing. We got a question, actually was a question from a high school freshman named Grace Lake. She's in Ames, Iowa. She's for the bands, but she says,

The main problem is the school issue Chromebooks. Kids are playing games, watching sports and going on TikTok. What do experts say about this? How can we have an up-to-date education while having it stay focused? Basically, Grace is saying, on the one hand, we want to make sure our students have all the access to technology they'll need, but on the other hand, we're worried about managing their relationships with that technology. Is there sort of an inherent contradiction in this whole discussion that, I don't know, maybe isn't even solvable?

Yeah, there absolutely is. Technology is omnipresent in classrooms these days, especially since the pandemic. Most every student in America, I'd say, has a Chromebook or some other kind of light internet-enabled device that they use for a lot of their schoolwork, and those are pretty much here to stay. And yeah, some students see it as a bit hypocritical to say, hey, you're telling

me I have to put my phone away, but then you're asking me to pull out my computer. So I think all of this is just going to come down to responsible management of technology, which is something we all face. Every one of us technologies everywhere. There's always a device within reach. You know, we use them for everything. And so it's just going to be about finding the right balance and managing it. But some are arguing the phones are kind of an easy thing we can try to just eliminate

so that then kids can just focus on the school issue technology, which hopefully is a little bit less distracting and a little bit more educational. But time will tell. Sarah Vendazo is one of our education reporters. Sarah, thanks so much for being here. Sure thing. Thanks for having me. And that's it for What's New Sunday for September 15th.

Today's show was produced by me, Charlotte Gartenberg, with supervising producer Michael Cosmides. We got help from our deputy editors, Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley. I'm Charlotte Gartenberg. We'll be back on Monday morning with a new show. Thanks for listening.