By my count, schools are currently working through their fourth attempt at banning cell phones. Kids, not teachers, of course.
We tried when the devices could only make calls and send texts around the turn of the century. And then a couple of times after smartphones got powerful and popular.
Lost in all the other, relatively trivial, crap coming out of the current administration, we have the on-going dismantling of the Department of Education.
Despite all the noise coming out of the non-educators running the place, hollowing out and shutting down the agency is really just a diversion from the larger Republican goal: selling off the entire public education system to the highest bidder.
A smaller but still overly-large school district here in the DC area recently finished a test program to ban student use of cell phones.
The plan got “mixed reviews”.
There is a cost to all the right-wing “culture” battles that have been waged around schools over the past few years. Real money is being wasted on chasing politically manufactured boogymen.
According to the Washington Post, “Virginia is looking for a new way to evaluate its schools”.
The overhaul was motivated by criticism from our MAGA-wannabe governor. Which makes the whole process suspect from the beginning.