Separate myth from fact and drop the cellphones
School is either already back in session or soon will be across the country. Here are a few 2024 aspirations for education that are worth the effort and the controversy.
To start, ban cellphones in schools: Don’t waste time limiting them, integrating them into the classroom or forcing teachers to monitor them. Just say no, loudly and clearly so the parents in the back of the room scrolling Instagram on their own phones can hear you.
The latest results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), based on sample testing in 81 countries, show achievement falters when student phone usage rises. That aligns with all the studies linking smartphone usage to lower GPAS, poor sleep habits and anxiety, loneliness and depression.
“Technology has in many countries become a major distraction from student learning and is clearly linked to negative outcomes,” said Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers PISA. “Many students say they get distracted in most of their math lessons, either by using cellphones themselves or by having other students using the devices.”
PISA found a growing cellphone dependency; with many students reporting they feel nervous without their phones nearby. PISA also examined correlations between a school’s policy on digital devices and student distractibility, finding attempts to permit phones but restrain their usage were ineffective.
“When teachers established rules about it, we don’t see much of a difference,” Schleicher said in a recent webinar. “And when schools established written statements about what students should be doing with their phones, it doesn’t seem to make much difference.”
The sole policy correlated to improved student focus was banning phones on school premises. “That is the only factor that we could identify that schools can deploy to reduce the level of distractions,” Schleicher said.
Next, stop politicizing education: The GOP is working tirelessly to foist costly private school voucher programs — redubbed education savings accounts — in states from coast to coast. Studies show students lose academic ground, especially in math, in statewide voucher programs where parents use tax dollars to pay for private schools. And the larger the program, the worse the results.
Expect lawmakers to cite the myth that the pandemic gave parents new insights into their children’s education and now they’re clamoring for private school choice. The contention that public school enrollment would plummet post-pandemic due to dissatisfied parents opting to home-school or transfer their children to private schools proved untrue. Enrollment held steady.
Nor were parents dismayed with their schools after COVID-19. Nationally representative surveys show the pandemic did not dampen parents’ strong faith and trust in their own public schools and their own children’s education.
Numerous states have a long way to go to meet the high standards that parents expect and students deserve, but that has more to do with historic underfunding of schools — slowly being corrected — and the demographic reality that the states struggling the most tend to have more children living in poverty and fewer parents with college degrees. Longitudinal studies point to family income and background as the greatest influences on student outcomes.
Next, question the questioners and ignore the noise: If you watch those raucous school board meetings where people rant about “woke” teachers and “obscene” books, you’ll start to recognize the same faces, many of whom aren’t local parents. These culture war combatants showing up at board meetings compensate for their lack of numbers with their ferocity and volume.
Many of the critics fall into the gray-hair set. I have nothing against that set, of which I am one, but their understanding of what’s happening in classrooms relies on memories or secondhand accounts. Younger parents with school-age children have daily and personal contact with schools and are involved, invested and informed. Their views ought to hold greater sway.
Finally, stand up for your schools: At rancorous school board meetings where speakers condemn such vital programs as social and emotional learning, I always wonder where the levelheaded and logical parents are. I know parents are busy, chauffeuring kids from late-night practices or overseeing homework, but they can’t stay on the sidelines while their schools face targeted and repeated political attacks.
In many districts, it’s fallen on students to speak out at board meetings in defense of their schools and their teachers. They’ve done so admirably and eloquently, reminding board members that the much-maligned diversity, equity and inclusion policies are essential if they and other students are to feel valued and represented. But it would be nice if their parents joined them to make the case for protecting public education.