In August, Forth Worth area school districts Keller, Grapevine-Colleyville, and Northwest joined Richardson and Mansfield in putting in place policies that limit students’ use of cell phones during class times.
Those school districts join a list in Texas, including Houston, Katy, and Keller ISD, that have adopted policies related to cell phone use in schools.
The decision to limit cell phone use in schools follows national research on the impact of cell phone use on academic performance and mental health.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, mathematics and reading test scores nationally peaked in 2012 and then experienced a more severe decline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told the Texas House Public Education Committee that academic proficiency in Texas peaked in 2013 following the mass adoption of the smartphone in the United States.
2014, the year of the iPhone 4, was the first time that the smartphone surpassed the feature phone in sales as the majority choice of phone for people in the United States, including children.
Not only have academic outcomes been affected, according to Jonathan Haidt and his team of researchers, the mass adoption of smartphones has also contributed to the dangerous decline in children’s mental health, including suicide, self-harm, and depression. Those trends are even starker with young girls.
From 2004 to 2022, major depressive episodes among teen girls increased from 13% to 28% and rates of self-harm increased by 259%.
Teachers have reported that cell phone use in the classroom is “out of control” and PEW Research found that 72% of high school teachers say cellphones are a major problem in classrooms. This is despite the vast majority of schools nationwide having an existing policy restricting non-academic use of cellphones in classrooms.
Partly in response to these reports and data, according to Education Week, at least 12 states in the nation have adopted state policies regarding cell phones in school. Some of the state laws recommend having a policy while others provide incentives to schools that have a policy, and some even require it or outright ban cellphone use in schools.
With the Texas Legislature scheduled to convene in January 2025, Texas seems poised to be one of the next states to consider a state policy regarding cell phones in schools.
In June, we reported that State Representative Ellen Troxclair (HD-19) announced she would be bringing forth legislation to adopt similar policies for Texas.
Chairman of the House Public Education Committee, Brad Buckley, said in a podcast appearance, that Troxclair made a good case and he was open to the idea.
Rep. Troxclair said that at minimum, the state of Texas should give kids 7 hours of uninterrupted time during the school day where they are not “tethered to their phones.”
