Should the State Ban Cell Phones In Its Public Schools?
An editorial in the Los Angeles Times endorses the growing trend to ban cell phones in public schools. The editorial points out that school districts all across the country are enacting such bans. The Times writes:
The 2024-25 school year may be the tipping point when adults act to curb kids’ phone addiction and regain their attention. It’s about time…. Nearly three-fourths of high school teachers surveyed last fall said that students being distracted by their cellphones in the classroom was a major problem, according to the Pew Research Center…. In addition, excessive social media heightens the risk of anxiety, depression and cyberbullying, and students use their phones during the day to coordinate drug purchases and fights. It’s clear that the presence of cellphones on campus is more harmful than helpful. Kids need an intervention, and schools are right to rein in this technology now before another generation suffers.
I’ve got a better idea. Instead of banning cell phones in public schools, let’s ban state involvement in education. After all, there is a good reason why students resort to their cell phones: public-school classes are boring. Statists simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that.
The much bigger issue that statists cannot bring themselves to acknowledge — in addition to the fact that public-school classes are boring — is that public schooling, not cell-phone usage, destroys children’s natural love of learning and turns them into good little automatons of the state.
After all, from the time a child is born, he
Article from The Future of Freedom Foundation
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