Schools wouldn’t think twice about telling a kid not to bring a Nintendo Switch to math class; for some reason we haven’t yet figured out that cellphones are just as bad, if not worse, for disrupting learning.
But we’re getting closer.
A bill moving through the state legislature would require schools to ban or sharply limit student cellphone use during instructional time, positioning Gov. JB Pritzker to deliver on his push for “distraction-free” classrooms.
More than 30 states now require districts to restrict student phone use in some way, according to reporting from Education Week. We think Illinois should join their ranks, and are encouraged that the governor is on board. This isn’t just an issue parents of school-age kids should care about, though they’re certainly the most affected. Screens in education are one factor increasingly under scrutiny as educators and parents search for explanations for this generation’s academic struggles, which became most pronounced during COVID-19 but have lingered even after years back in the physical classroom. Fail to fix it and we risk compounding learning losses already evident since the pandemic.
A Pritzker-backed bill fell short last year, but now the initiative is getting a second shot, garnering bipartisan co-sponsors and a smattering of amendments indicating collaboration and interest in getting this measure moving.
Senate Bill 2427 would require schools to adopt policies limiting phone use during instructional time, with limited exceptions. A broader national push is afoot to curb all sorts of classroom distractions, with states and districts also rethinking the role of laptops and other always-on devices during the school day.
Phones are the obvious first step, but the larger question is how much screen time belongs in classrooms at all.
Just some examples of the burgeoning movement: Virginia and Missouri lawmakers are weighing proposals to limit classroom screen exposure or more tightly regulate school-issued devices. In Europe, countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands have already moved to scale back screen-heavy instruction or restrict student devices in school in an effort to de-digitize classrooms.
Some are calling it an “analog movement,” but we see it as a return to what works, similar to the shift back toward phonics-based instruction in states like Mississippi and Louisiana after years of approaches that de-emphasized foundational reading skills.
During congressional testimony in January, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath argued that Gen Z — the generation with the dubious distinction of being the first to have technology widely integrated into their education — is underperforming academically compared with their parents. “Our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age,” he testified.
“When tech enters education, learning goes down,” he said. ”We have evolved biologically to learn from other human beings, not from screens.”
It isn’t just that too much tech is bad, it’s that pen and paper are good. Research shows that writing on something other than a keyboard has many benefits for students, especially kids learning to read, triggering mental connections that make it easier to pick up this essential skill. Typing is faster, but handwriting hammers home lessons and facilitates deeper learning.
While the cellphone debate continues in Springfield, local districts are still embracing edtech to the chagrin of many parents. In Evanston-Skokie District 65
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, parents last week turned out to a local school board meeting to beg board members not to continue the district’s 1:1 technology system, which supplies each kindergartener through eighth grader in the district with their own iPad.“If you want to know how your March Madness bracket is doing, my son will check the score for you on his school iPad,” parent Lisa Weiss said at the meeting. “Having these distractions on school devices legitimizes the distractions,” she added.
That about hits the nail on the head.
Illinois should adopt the proposal to get cellphones out of classrooms, and then consider the role of screens in classrooms more broadly. Even teachers unions, including the National Education Association, support getting phones out of class. NEA reports 90% of its members back such policies.
For Springfield, this shouldn’t be a difficult decision.
Every one of us knows how addictive our phones are. For those of you whose school days are long past, do you believe you would have learned more if you had TikTok videos available to you during class time?
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