Will Utah Ban Phones In Public Schools?

Should kids have access to their smartphones while in school, especially in the classroom?

The debate is heating up in the state of Utah after Governor Spencer Cox sent letters to school principals and the Utah State Board of Education urging them to ban school children from having access to the devices while in class.

“We all know that cell phones are a distraction and when we put phones away we can actually focus and study. Cell phone-free learning environments will help our teachers teach and our students learn. We want to give our schools every opportunity to succeed and so I hope our local school districts and charter schools will join me in this effort to keep phones in backpacks or lockers during class time.”

-- Governor Spencer J. Cox.

Cox also cited numerous studies that show kids use their phone "for more than 10 minutes" on non-school related topics while in class.

A study published this week found that students get between 6- and 12-percent higher scores on tests when smartphones have been banned in the classroom.

Steve Dunham of the Washington County School District agrees that learning can be improved with a classroom ban on smartphones, but he said we need to proceed cautiously.

"For a child, they have a different perspective because they've grown up with (a smartphone) and their brain has attuned to it differently," he said. "I've seen panic attacks from kids when their cell phone is taken away."

A bill to create a law that would ban smartphones in classrooms has not been passed yet, but Cox and other officials say one should be enacted soon.

“If you go back and look at the data, learning loss in our country, and all over the world, started in about 2012 when the smartphones became ubiquitous,” Gov. Cox said.

The arguments against banning smartphones in classrooms don't hold much water, with one blogger saying, "They offer a measure of safety for children, can be used by students for research and learning, expose students to academic information and new learning formats and offer individualized learning platforms to students."

The battle is heating up and is far from over.

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