The research showing the impact of cellphones during class outweighs an individual’s opinion.

More broadly, any kind of in-class interruption can hurt academic performance. This same logic has been applied to dress codes, speech constraints (most famously Bong Hits for Jesus), and behavioral edicts.

But this wack-a-mole strategy of prohibitions isn’t championed because it is particularly effective. There’s always some new distraction in the classroom you can chase after next. The strategy is championed because its cheap. Banning cell phones has very little budgeted cost as a public policy. By contrast, reducing class sizes and providing more hands-on learning opportunities and hiring/retaining highly educated teachers has an enormous price tag.

Nevermind which strategy has a proven history of increased student performance. We just need to keep locking enormous pools of children in tiny windowless classrooms and throwing increasingly byzantine standardized tests at them, then chasing any student who produces a “distraction” from this mind-numbing educational policy.