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Charles Longshore distinctly remembers the tipping point that led his Alabama middle school to ban cell phones, two years before the state adopted its own ban.

Longshore, then the assistant principal at Dothan Preparatory Academy, had gotten wind that two girls planned to fight in the courtyard between classes and pulled them into the office about 10 minutes before the scheduled rumble. That prevented the fight, but it didn鈥檛 stop hundreds of other students from racing to the courtyard hoping to watch a spectacle advertised through texts and chats, with their own phones out ready to record it.

Stories like these 鈥� along with countless less dramatic moments of distraction and disengagement 鈥� have made cell phone bans a rare point of bipartisan agreement on education policy. Twenty-six states now have . Two-thirds of principals said their school had a bell-to-bell ban in a .

But so far there hasn鈥檛 been much concrete evidence about the impacts of school cell phone bans.

鈥淭he policy action is just happening at a level that far surpasses the available evidence,鈥� said David Figlio, an economics professor at the University of Rochester. 鈥淭he available evidence is largely people鈥檚 hunches.鈥�

Figlio and Umut 脰zek, a senior economist at RAND Corp., a research organization, set out to address that gap. Their study, , analyzes data from a large, county-level urban school district in Florida, which was the first state to adopt a cell phone ban.

The study found modest improvements in test scores in the second year of the ban, after an increase in suspensions in the first year.

The Florida school district had adopted a bell-to-bell ban, more restrictive than the state law, which requires that students not use their phones during instructional time. Students violating the ban had their phones confiscated but got them back at the end of the school day. Students could also face discipline, including suspension, for violating the ban.

Florida students take standardized tests three times a year, and schools report discipline and attendance daily, giving researchers a lot of information to work with.

Using data about cell phone usage coming from each school building, the researchers first identified schools where students used cell phones at higher and lower levels before the ban, which went into effect in 2023. Middle schools had higher cell phone use than high schools before and after the ban.

Researchers then used data from the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years to compare changes in schools with the highest cell phone use before the ban and those with the lowest.

This study design, known as difference within difference, allows researchers to draw stronger conclusions about causality.

In the second year of the ban, average test scores on the higher-stakes spring test went up by 1.1 percentiles more in the schools where students previously used their phones a lot, compared with low-activity schools. The results were more significant for middle and high school students, and boys seemed to benefit more than girls.

But the gains came with tradeoffs. Suspensions went up in the first year of the ban, the study found, especially for Black boys.

And white students saw greater test score growth than Black students.

鈥淏lack students seem to be accruing fewer of the benefits of the cell phone ban and more of the disciplinary costs,鈥� Figlio said.

The study can鈥檛 answer why Black students 鈥� who often face disproportionate discipline 鈥� were suspended more often. The increase largely went away in the second year of the ban. Still, Figlio said, the finding calls for schools to be thoughtful about how they approach enforcement.

The study didn鈥檛 directly measure school climate 鈥� the kind of improvement Longshore and other principals often notice most after they adopt a ban 鈥� but researchers did track unexcused absences and students changing schools, potential proxies for how content or safe students feel at school.

Both metrics improved after the cell phone ban was in effect. In fact, the study found that the improvements in attendance contributed to about half the increase in student test scores after the ban.

Figlio called the test score increases 鈥渕eaningful but not game-changing.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 not transforming test scores,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e observing palpable improvement. We鈥檙e observing kids attending school more.鈥�

Test score declines blamed on cell phones

American students鈥� scores on and have been trending down for the past decade, well before COVID disruptions. Researchers are not entirely sure why, but one theory is that the rise of cell phone and social media use among children has had deleterious cognitive and social effects.

鈥淲e lack direct evidence of a causal link between smartphones and learning, but I鈥檓 convinced that this technology is a key driver of youth mental health challenges, a distraction from learning, both inside and outside of schools, and a deterrent to reading,鈥� Harvard education professor Martin West told the .

Because social media wasn鈥檛 introduced to children through a randomized controlled trial, it鈥檚 hard to isolate the effects, West said at the hearing. Cell phone bans provide an opportunity to study what happens when social media is removed from the school environment.

But West urged policymakers and parents to address social media use outside of school as well. A study published in JAMA earlier this month found that than those who used little or no social media.

Figlio said he鈥檚 prepared to say that cell phones are a driver of test score declines, but there鈥檚 not enough evidence to say whether they鈥檙e the primary driver.

Longshore, whose school was not involved in the study and who had not read the study when he spoke to Chalkbeat, said state test scores didn鈥檛 change significantly after the school started requiring students to leave their phones in a lockbox all day. The school maintained its trajectory of slow but steady growth.

But far fewer students failed their classes, he said. Longshore referred roughly 80 students to summer school the year before the ban. This past summer, it was just 20.

Longshore, who left Dothan at the end of last school year to take a principal job in another district, didn鈥檛 suspend students who violated the ban. Instead, after the first offense, the school would hold onto the phone until a parent could pick it up. At a high-poverty school where many parents work multiple jobs, students might go days without their phones 鈥� and the parent usually made sure the child didn鈥檛 bring it to school again.

With chronic absenteeism already high, Longshore said the last thing he wanted was more students out of class as a result of the ban.

And in fact, discipline at the school improved significantly. There was less drama, Longshore said, and far fewer fights. The lunchroom got loud again with students talking to their classmates.

Future research on cell phone bans could dig into school climate surveys or examine academic or discipline data in different school contexts, Figlio said. The question of impact is 鈥渘ot asked and answered,鈥� he said.

鈥淚 care a lot about test scores, but I care even more about kids鈥� life outcomes 鈥� graduating high school, attending college, workforce participation,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese are things we won鈥檛 know for a while.鈥�

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at .听

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