I don’t understand how a state governor can “introduce” a bill.
Isn’t that the legislature’s job?
Anyone can introduce a bill, including you. Only the legislature’s vote on it counts.
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2024/06/police-investigate-shooting-outside-garfield-high-school/
5 days ago. Glad they have their priorities straight.
Ontario has now passed two different bills banning cell phones in school. It’s a great distraction from actual problems. I fully expect we’ll pass a third in a few years if our provincial government is re-elected
Teachers don’t need a sheet of paper at a legislature somewhere to take away cellphones. They can do that already, and if the kids disobey a legislature won’t help. I assume no one is expecting kids to go to prison for having a cellphone
The key thing is that teachers can ban phones in their individual classrooms if the school permits it.
There are many schools in which the senior admin don’t institute phone bans (you’d be surprised how common this is).
Legislating it helps maintain consistency and parity between schools nation wide, which is important as it’s a quality of education issue, so the policy should be consistent across all schools.
I’m not from North America, but the situation is similar across most western democracies.
LOL good luck with that guys
smartphones are a distraction in schools. The teachers shouldn’t have them either, tbh
Good idea. Its of the main reason why education today is faltering. Allowing too many screen in the class room is simply a bad idea. These kids have the no ability to stay focused in any way. They way they learn guarantees many will never learn to read without a screen and the internet. I see it often in my current job.
Every teacher I know is happy with this move. Personally, I think kids could do fine with a flip phone. Maybe this will bring them back more on the market, too.
I work in a high school in a California school district where they’re discussing banning cell phones.
Most teachers I’ve talked to about it think it’s really fucking stupid because you’re not going to be able to ban them, partly because a TON of parents showed up at the school board meeting to say they would send them with their kid anyway for a variety of reasons. The board also talked about different things they could buy to take phones and lock them up during class or as students come in. Most of the solutions were pretty expensive, and some of the schools are literally falling apart, so that also pissed people off.
A great start would be to have a campus-wide rule that is CONSISTENT. Some teachers give out a detention if they even see the phone. Some do activities with QR codes and use them as tools. Some have boxes on the corner of their desk and students are required to keep their phone in the box so the teacher can see if they reach for it. We have students with free periods, and if they don’t go home, they hang out outside around campus or in the library. Should phones be banned then too? Or just during class?
There are so many ways to try to deal with it, and at least in my school (not even the district as a whole), every teacher deals with it differently. I doubt the state of New York is all that different.
That makes sense, too. Admittedly, my circle of teachers I know may be less than yours, but the ones I know seemed very exasperated with them. What do you sense a good, consistent rule would be?
Honestly, I’m at a loss. It’s so hard to get a single school of teachers to stick to one policy, let alone at a district or state level. When I send an all-staff email at my school (and they’re occasionally important with scheduling details), Outlook often tells me that only 67% of them even opened it.
I feel like you’d either have to: a) incorporate cellphones as a tool in class and have standard repercussions (e.g. 1st/2nd time earn a detention, 3rd time earn a Saturday school) for kids texting/on social media, or b) do something like a box on the desk so it’s visible but they can’t touch it.
I just don’t think it’s possible to ban them at school. Too many parents don’t respect any school authority figures after COVID with all the culture war stuff (fight to return to full day school, fight to not wear masks, fight to censor bipoc and lgbtq+ books/lessons/celebrations, etc.). I think either way, it’ll just end up being another shitty part of a teacher’s job.
It’s a tough job =(
Good. We already did that here.
This so government overreach. Let the teachers and school admin decide. There no need to get the state government involved.
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I’m torn on this. Allow them and let natural selection take its course, or force students to pay attention, which I would’ve hated as a kid.
The ability to search for answers online is important for learning
At a certain age/level I agree. However, they aren’t needed or helpful in basic low level grades where you’re teaching the framework to build upon.
Is she going to ban hats next? Put in a law telling students exactly how they can decorate their lockers?
Surely there are more pressing things to be legislated?
As someone who went through the NY public school system many years ago, I can confirm hats were/are hard banned. Like unless it was for religious reasons you really couldn’t even think about putting something on your head.
Cell phones were also banned in my youth but I guess times have changed?
Oh yes, but by the school. Not the law. We have elected positions specifically for figuring out how schools should teach children. Also top down negative mandates about clothes are already borderline abuses of power. We want laws preventing admins from going overboard, not mega bans in state law.
The research showing the impact of cellphones during class outweighs an individual’s opinion. This has nothing to do with fashion and can’t be compared to hats or locker decorations.
The research showing the impact of cellphones during class outweighs an individual’s opinion.
More broadly, any kind of in-class interruption can hurt academic performance. This same logic has been applied to dress codes, speech constraints (most famously Bong Hits for Jesus), and behavioral edicts.
But this wack-a-mole strategy of prohibitions isn’t championed because it is particularly effective. There’s always some new distraction in the classroom you can chase after next. The strategy is championed because its cheap. Banning cell phones has very little budgeted cost as a public policy. By contrast, reducing class sizes and providing more hands-on learning opportunities and hiring/retaining highly educated teachers has an enormous price tag.
Nevermind which strategy has a proven history of increased student performance. We just need to keep locking enormous pools of children in tiny windowless classrooms and throwing increasingly byzantine standardized tests at them, then chasing any student who produces a “distraction” from this mind-numbing educational policy.
It’s no different than sleeping through class or just doodling and ignoring the teacher. If the kid can’t not have their phone out then they get banished to the back of the class. If they play noise they get sent to the office, just like disruptive kids in every generation.
It’s no different than sleeping through class or just doodling and ignoring the teacher.
And there you have it folks, doodling is the same as these social media apps designed to be addictive that also lead to all kinds of bullying and social anxieties and harassment.
I’m sorry, you think banning smartphones at school is going to stop cyber bullying? Because bullies infamously follow the rules and kids are at school 24/7?
You said it was the same as doodling. I responded to that. All that other stuff you added was just fabricated in your own head.
Let’s give them a suspension, send them to their lead painted home with a pack of smokes, just like every generation.
Okay Mr modest proposal.
