By DAVID BOYLE
The Alaska State Board of Education passed a resolution last month on the use of cell phones in school classrooms. The board stated that cell phones in the classroom interfere with students’ ability to maintain attention and engagement in classrooms.
That would seem fairly common sense: If students are playing games, watching movies, or texting other students, they probably aren’t paying much attention to what the teacher is teaching.
The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology confirmed this in 2017 research by noting that students distracted by mobile phones “perform worse on assessments than those who were not distracted.”
Pew Research cited that 72% of high school teachers say cell phones are problematic because students are distracted from learning.
And in 2020, 77% of U.S. schools moved to ban cellphones for nonacademic purposes.
Many states are working on limiting cell phone usage in the classroom. Idaho’s Gov. Brad Little announced Executive Order 2024-11, the “Phone Free Learning Act,” which encourages schools to implement a policy restricting cell phones. This Act rewards districts $5,000 for adopting a policy limiting cell phones in the classroom.
Colorado is offering districts $50,000 for adopting a policy limiting cell phone usage in the classroom.
And the Los Angeles Unified School District is banning cell phones in the classroom by 2025.
And the Alaska State Board of Education states that “cyberbullying, harassment and dissemination of inappropriate content” are a real problem in our schools.
The board has tasked the Department of Education and Early Development to write a policy prohibiting the use of cell phones during class hours. It also “urges” district school boards to implement the same policies.
Local control will determine if these policies are adopted by the school boards in Alaska.
If these policies are adopted, maybe students will be less stressed, less bullied, and need less mental health assistance. And maybe, just maybe, student achievement will increase.
What do you think?
David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.
In my school in the bush, we chose a no cell policy in class. If we saw them out, they were confiscated. Given back after school. Repeatedly and it took parents to come pick them up. It’s not brain surgery.
The way it should be.
It’s about time they pointed out the obvious.
Wow, common sense. Amazing!
Something we should all be able to agree on. And how long has this b.s. gone on? How much damage. Who controls the schools again? Go ahead lefty’s, deny away.
It’s been a serious problem for many years already, what exactly does the state “Department of Education and Early Development” do, that it has no time or focus for serious issues further degrading what is called “education” here?
And what business does the state have in “Early Development”?
Early development for children is provided for them by their family. The state is incapable of substituting as parents or grandparents.
Cell phone usage in class is just one serious issue, disentangling the state intrusion into families is the first step toward recovery.
Considering the education industry’s hard work to sustain their national recognition as one of America’s most perverted, overpriced and underperforming,
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… what difference does a few cell phones make?
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Do these things not entertain the inmates, keep them reasonably quiet, which is the whole idea behind Alaska’s government-operated daycare-in-lieu-of-education racket?
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Who can, with a straight face, compare Alaska’s eductation industry to Malaysian schools?
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The one is something the other can never be in its present state, no matter how much tax money’s poured into it.
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Could the fix be as simple as contracting with the Malaysian Ministry of Education to operate Alaska’s education system?
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No? Then the cellphone flap is simply another symptom of what’s preventing Alaskans schools from being as good as Malaysian schools, or damn near any other school system in which corruption, perversion, incompetence, and illiteracy are not organizational milestones, no?
Common sense 20 years late! You gotta laugh and cry.
“The Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology confirmed this in 2017”…ummm…do I even need to state the obvious using thus study as a valid reason?
Should we at least mention Dr. Bishop using AI to write this policy for the state? Not mentioning this is problematic for many reasons.
Malaysia along with a lot of other countries was 3rd world, not too long ago, but by prioritizing education of their youth they created functioning countries.
Through hard work and focusing on their youth. They don’t castrate their boys and try make effiminate men out of their girls either.
We wasted infrastructure and educational excellence our forefathers left us in a couple of generations. Descending into a 3rd world country. Remarkable achievement.
The level of education Jefferson and Washington were afforded in the mid 1700s in what were colonial, isolated backwaters of North America is many times superior to the garbage indoctrination of today.
Removing cell phones is simply
rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic.
“Cell phones in class interfere with learning”
No kidding?
Duh….!
It took them until 2024 to figure this out? Really?