Schools Have a Tech Problem

As the new school year begins, school districts across the United States are cracking down on cellphones in classrooms. Teachers are tired of constantly pressing students to stop watching TikTok and messaging friends during class. In many schools, students have also used phones to threaten or bully their classmates.

As a result, as I note in a story today, at least eight states, including Indiana and Pennsylvania, have adopted measures this year to limit cellphones in schools.

But the phone crackdowns illustrate a larger issue. Technology rules and safeguards in schools often lag far behind student use and abuse of digital tools.

And it’s not just phones — school-issued laptops, tablets and classroom apps can also become sources of distraction and bullying. In today’s newsletter, I’ll highlight some of the tech challenges schools are facing.

Student cellphone bans

Schools have been trying to limit student phone use for decades. Maryland banned students from bringing pagers and “cellular telephones” to school in the late 1980s as illegal drug sales boomed. In the 1990s, as mobile phones gained traction, some schools barred the devices to stop the chirping from disrupting class.

Since the 2000s, though, it’s also gone the other way. As school shootings became more common, many districts began allowing mobile phones as a safety measure. And, after the rise of iPhones, some schools that had barred cellphones reversed the bans in part because some lower-income students who did not own laptops used them for schoolwork.