Some Texas kids will be returning to school next week, minus their cell phones. During the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed House Bill 1481, which requires Texas schools to ban cell phones during school hours.
And apparently, the timing is right because according to a new Pew Research Center poll, support for school cellphone bans has gone up since last year.
"Absolutely, school is not a social function, it is a time to learn" said Texas based education expert, Jean Burk.
Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law, and it is set to go into effect on September 1st.
"I think that it's necessary" Burk told KTRH, "They have just been overwhelmed with the frustration, and the kids are rude. They can't hold their attention, 9 times out of 10 the kids are going to be on TikTok or Snapchat."
The study also found that 2/3 of Americans now believe that banning cellphones will help kids in class, both academically and behaviorally.
"I do think it's going to go well" noted Burk, "I think there's going to be a lot of pushback, it's going to be hard in the beginning. But it's going to reap tremendous rewards for not only the students, certainly, but for the teachers and the school as a whole."
It's worth noting that 74% of Americans now support cell phone bans, up from 68% from last fall.
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