Should the federal government require school districts to develop their own student cellphone ban policies?
That’s one of the Center for American Progress’ five federal policy recommendations to address cellphone use in schools, which many educators and advocates argue impedes student learning and is detrimental to student mental health.
Whether a policy change of that scale could ever take hold is unclear at best. Some members of Congress have suggested that the federal government should do more to report on the impact of the devices in schools. Others have said national policymakers should consider taking steps to restrict the presence of the cellphones in K-12 settings.
At least 37 states and the District of Columbia already require school districts to ban or restrict students’ use of cellphones in schools, according to an Education Week tally. Most states require a bell-to-bell restriction, while others require restrictions only during class time or don’t specify when cellphone use should be restricted.
“States are approaching this very differently, [which] suggests that there needs to be some federal guidance in terms of what the baseline should be,” said Weadé James, one of the authors of the CAP report and the senior director of K-12 education policy for the liberal think tank, in an interview with Education Week.
We're really losing our kids when it comes to their mental health, when it comes to their social skills, because of the prevalence of cellphone use during school and outside of school.
The Biden administration’s Education Department issued guidance in 2024 recommending states develop policies around student cellphone use in schools, but it didn’t take a position on what those policies should say. So far, the department under the Trump administration hasn’t issued any related guidance or policies, James said.
The federal government “should offer a framework and establish a policy baseline for states while providing flexibilities for special considerations, including how states and districts ensure equity in ban enforcement and exemptions for students with unique needs and circumstances,” the Center for American Progress argues in the report, published in February.
“If we want to make sure that kids are attentive and building their social connections and interactions in school, we need to be serious about minimizing cellphone use in schools,” James said. “We’re really losing our kids when it comes to their mental health, when it comes to their social skills, because of the prevalence of cellphone use during school and outside of school.”
Cellphone regulations at the national level have grown in other countries
Many countries are starting to regulate students’ cellphone use in schools. In 2023, less than 1 in 4 countries had such bans, as reported in a UNESCO Global Education Monitoring report. But momentum has shifted. A follow-up report published in March found that 58% of countries, including Bolivia, France, and the Netherlands, have a national ban on mobile phones in schools.
Most, if not all, of the countries with national-level bans have a centralized, nationally governed education system, said Anna Cristina D’Addio, the chief education policy analyst who worked on the UNESCO report.
For countries with more decentralized systems, such as Argentina, Germany and Mexico, these policies are often made at the regional or local levels, D’Addio said.
Bans enforced only at the local level might create major differences in the policy approach within a same country. Yet in some cases, those differences could make sense because different states have student populations with their own distinct characteristics and needs, D’Addio said.
“Initiating a ban at the local level within a decentralized system may facilitate stronger adherence nationwide,” she said.
How likely is the United States to do this?
In the United States, the federal government has limited authority to address cellphones in schools.
Its decentralized education system creates impediments to nationwide education policies, “unless there’s a lot of support from states,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor emeritus of education policy at Brown University and the Kerry Group professor in public policy at the University of Hong Kong.
Additionally, the current policy climate in Washington “tends to enhance the role of states rather than the federal government [as] the drivers of solutions to these problems,” Wong said.
The Trump administration has downsized the U.S. Department of Education and framed its education policy moves as part of a project of “returning education to the states.”
Initiatives such as cellphone restrictions often come “from the ground up,” Wong said. “When there [are] a sufficient number of states and districts getting more involved in a particular policy initiative, then [the federal government] pays attention.”
As state-level interest in school cellphone bans has picked up, some federal lawmakers are paying attention. During a January hearing on ed tech, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, floated the possibility of a federally mandated school cellphone ban.
And last year, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers introduced the Focus on Learning Act, which would require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to study and report on the use of mobile devices in K-12 schools. It would also require the Education Department to create a pilot program to award grants to help schools purchase storage for students’ cellphones.
So far the bill has not moved.
However, Congress included a provision in the 2026 budget supporting “efforts to collect data on and to assess the best practices … and implementation” of school cellphone bans.
Research on limiting the use of cellphones in schools is emerging
Research on the effectiveness of cellphone bans is emerging and mixed, largely because these policies are so new that there hasn’t been much time to study them in a systematic way.
In a large Florida school district, a study found that a cellphone ban improved students’ test scores and attendance in the measure’s second year. Early findings from an ongoing, large-scale national survey project show that cellphone policies that require students to store their phones in locked pouches or lockers are linked to students paying better attention in class.
There is less evidence that cellphone bans are helping students’ mental health—at least so far. But there is research showing that heavy cellphone use and social media access are undermining kids’ mental and physical well-being.
A ban is not a complete solution, educators and experts say
Research aside, cellphone restrictions are popular with educators. Anecdotally, they say the curbs on the devices have led to fewer distractions in class, fewer behavioral problems, and students socializing more.
State-level curbs on cellphone use—as opposed to classroom-to-classroom policies—provide educators with leverage, backers of restrictions say. If parents and students oppose the restrictions, school officials can put the onus on state law.
However, the idea of creating a federal mandate drew a more skeptical reaction from some educators.
“I would be a fan of keeping it at the state level,” said Julie Kasper, the principal of Century High School, in Hillsboro, Ore., which is among the states that require districts to create a bell-to-bell cellphone restrictions.
Kasper worries about consequences tied to a federal ban: “What would happen to a school if the data is such that there were higher occurrences of students breaking the rule?” Kasper said.
Other educators say the focus should be on teaching students media literacy and digital citizenship, rather than banning devices.
“Should schools be mandated to teach students about the online profile they build for themselves and how to effectively manage that? That’s more of what needs to happen, rather than banning cellphones,” said Jerry Anderson, the principal of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Ill. Illinois is not among the states that require districts to ban cellphones.
That would be “more effective in the long run,” Anderson said. “I want [students] to understand there’s a time and place to be on a cellphone. There are things to communicate about through social media, and there are things not to communicate about through social media.”
