Bell-to-bell cellphone bans in public schools have reduced student distractions but have had minimal impact on test scores, a new study shows.
Researchers from Duke University, Stanford University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania analyzed data from roughly 4,600 schools that required students to lock away their phones in pouches made by the California company Yondr.
They found that the share of teachers who reported that students used phones in class for personal reasons dropped from 61% to 13%. Moreover, GPS data tracked a 30% drop in device “pings” among adults and students on campus by the third year of pouch use.
The study found that disciplinary incidents declined after a spike during the first year of implementation, but it found no clear effect on student test scores and cited “little evidence” of improvements in class attendance, online bullying or self-reported attentiveness.
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“For academic achievement, average effects on test scores are consistently close to zero,” the researchers wrote. “High schools see modest positive effects, particularly in math, while middle schools see small negative effects. We find little evidence of effects on school attendance, self-reported classroom attention, or perceived online bullying.”
They said they chose to study Yondr because its lockable pouches have become the most common and consistently enforced storage device at schools with bell-to-bell bans.
Published by the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, the 110-page working paper is the largest study to date on jurisdictions that have restricted cellphones in public schools since 2023.
It is also the first to analyze cellphone use data rather than self-reported numbers from schools with “no show” policies that require students to merely keep their devices out of sight.
The Phone-Free Schools State Report Card assesses the District of Columbia and 23 states — including Texas, New York, Indiana, Virginia and Oregon — with bell-to-bell bans on student cellphones.
Tennessee and seven other states have banned cellphone use during class time only. Another nine, including California and Minnesota, require school districts to devise their own restrictions.
Education and mental health experts not connected to the study said more research is needed before drawing any conclusions about bell-to-bell bans.
“Other studies have found that cellphone bans improve academic achievement and also that they increase school attendance,” said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychologist and addiction researcher. “But even if that were not the case, student well-being is worth improving. What this study shows is that having access to cellphones makes kids feel worse.”
Jessica Pearson, an adolescent guide at Montessori Children’s House of Lansing in Michigan, said the study affirms her pre-K-6 school’s decision to lock phones in pouches all day.
“I expected to see some sort of positive impact on academic achievement, but was more interested in how students’ well-being could potentially be improved with restricting phone use,” Ms. Pearson said. “I think even a slight positive increase in student well-being in later years outweighs any detractors of banning classroom phone use.”
Anecdotal reports show that parental pushback has emboldened students to explore workarounds to the bans, such as damaging storage pouches or bringing an extra phone to school.
A 2024 Pew Research Center survey showed that 67% of adults supported banning smartphones during class time, but 36% favored bell-to-bell bans.
Parenting author Janice Robinson-Celeste said the study shows “the science is clear” that bell-to-bell bans go further than needed.
“As a parent and a former vocational public school teacher, I am against banning cellphones for students,” Ms. Robinson-Celeste said in an email. “I think they are necessary in today’s world, and not having access to them is a safety issue.”
Child safety experts have increasingly endorsed bell-to-bell bans as a corrective to artificial-intelligence-driven social media algorithms heightening youth screen addiction, anxiety and depression.
Psychologist Matthew Mulvaney, a parenting researcher at Syracuse University in upstate New York, said it’s too early to assess the bell-to-bell ban that his state enacted in August.
“A year or two may not be enough to dramatically change scores,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “It’s like having one particularly good teacher one year isn’t enough to change the total trajectory of school achievement for a kid.”
Education insiders predicted that the number of states moving toward bell-to-bell bans will grow, based on positive classroom reports, despite a recent study that found no effect on test scores.
Titania Jordan, chief marketing officer at the online safety company Bark Technologies, said the study confirms only that cellphone bans are not a magic bullet.
“They can help reclaim the school day, reduce distractions and give kids a break from the constant social pressure machine in their pocket,” Ms. Jordan said. “But these bans were never going to fix test scores, mental health, bullying or digital safety by themselves.”
Florida’s example
Florida enacted the first statewide restrictions in 2023 with a law that banned student phones during class time in all K-12 public schools.
A working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in October found that Florida students experienced a 12% increase in disciplinary incidents and in-school suspensions during the ensuing year.
Those numbers fell to earlier levels in the second year, as the study noted “significant positive effects” on standardized test scores.
Psychologist Vince Callahan, founder of the Florida Institute of Neural Discovery, said it could take years for schools to rebuild brain pathways that atrophied in students addicted to their phones.
“State policies should frame cellphone bans as behavioral and environmental interventions, not academic silver bullets,” Mr. Callahan said. “Their value lies in improving focus, classroom order, and teacher capacity, rather than directly raising achievement scores.”
Most psychologists insist that test scores can improve only after students become healthier outside school as well.
“When a major obstacle like a cellphone is eliminated, over time, social interactions improve,” said Ray Guarendi, a family psychologist and Catholic parenting author based in Canton, Ohio. “However, achievement scores take longer to be positively impacted and are much more likely to be determined by many other variables outside the limited cell band in the school.”
Parents against teachers
The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, has endorsed school cellphone bans.
NEA President Becky Pringle warned against the impact of phones “on student mental health, safety, and learning” in a statement shared Wednesday with The Washington Times.
“Educators overwhelmingly support these [phone ban] efforts because they know they create safer, healthier learning environments for everyone,” Ms. Pringle said.
She noted that “more than 90% of educators” surveyed by the union “identify student mental health as a critical concern, often linked to the overuse by students of their personal devices during the school day.”
United States Parents Involved in Education, a conservative parental rights group, countered that the study of Yondr pouches supports allowing phones in school.
“Students have recorded evidence of bad behavior by teachers with their cellphones,” said Melanie Kurdys, a board member of the group. “We are not surprised by the study’s results, as there is much more to teaching and learning than just eliminating distractions.”
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a network of conservative private investors and state legislators, says the jury is still out.
“State policymakers and school administrators should take note that limiting student cellphone use is only part of the solution, not a silver bullet,” said Jake Morabito, the council’s senior director for policy.
“In addition to removing distractions from the classroom, educators and parents must teach and emphasize responsible use of the internet, smart devices, and new digital tools like artificial intelligence that will be mandatory for success in future careers,” Mr. Morabito added.
