Banning cellphones in schools could help kids learn, but black students are suspended at higher rates

The policy also has troubling side effects. Cell phone bans have led to a significant increase in suspensions for first-year students, especially black students. But disciplinary action was reduced the following year.

“Cellphone bans are not a panacea,” said David Figlio, an economist at the University of Rochester and one of the study’s co-authors. “But they seem to be helping the kids. They’re going to school more and they’re doing better on their tests.”

Figlio said he was “concerned” about the 16% increase in black student suspensions in the short term. What’s not clear from this data analysis is whether black students are more likely to violate the new cellphone rules, or whether teachers are more likely to single out black students for punishment. It is also unclear from these administrative action records whether students first received a warning or a lesser sanction before being suspended.

Data suggests students have adapted to the new rules. A year later, student suspensions, including black students, are back to pre-cell phone ban levels.

“What we observed was a rough start,” Figlio added. “There’s a lot of discipline.”

The study, “Effects of School Cell Phone Bans on Student Achievement: Evidence from Florida,” is a draft working paper and has not yet been peer-reviewed. The report was scheduled to be distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research on October 20, and the author shared a draft with me in advance. Figlio and co-author Umut Özek of the RAND Corporation believe this is the first study to show causation, not just correlation, between cell phone bans and learning.

The academic gains from cell phone bans are small, averaging less than one percentage point. This is equivalent to moving from the 50th percentile (middle) to the 51st percentile (still close to the middle) on the math and reading tests, and for most students this small improvement does not occur until the second year. The academic gains were most pronounced among middle school students, white students, Hispanic students and male students. The academic performance of black students and female students was not statistically significant.

I was surprised to find data on student cell phone use in school. The study’s authors used information from Advan Research Corp., which collects and analyzes data from cellphones around the world for commercial purposes, such as counting how many people visit a specific retail store. Researchers obtained this data from schools in one Florida school district and estimated how many students were using cell phones between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. before and after the ban went into effect

Data shows that prior to the 2023 ban, an average of more than 60% of middle school students in this particular Florida school district, which was not named but was described as one of the 10 largest school districts in the United States, had used their phones at least once during the school day. (Five of the nation’s 10 largest school districts are in Florida.) After the ban, the share of middle school students dropped by half to 30 percent the first year and to 25 percent the second year.

Elementary school students are less likely to use mobile phones in the first place, and their use of mobile phones in school has dropped from about 25% before the ban to 15% after the ban. Before the ban, more than 45% of high school students used mobile phones. After the ban, this proportion dropped to about 10%.

Average daily visits to smartphones in schools by year and grade

Florida has not enacted a comprehensive cell phone ban in 2023, but has implemented strict restrictions. These restrictions are due to be tightened in 2025, and further tightening is not examined in this article.

Anti-phone policies have become increasingly popular since the pandemic, largely based on our collective intuition as adults that kids don’t learn as well when they’re addicted to TikTok and SnapChat.

Figlio said this may be a rare case in public policy where “the data supports the hunch.”

Contact a Staff Writer Jill Bacher Call 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.

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