You text during class you get told to stop, happens again you get detention/thrown out of class/sent to the dean and eventually thrown out of the school. Always was that way. No need for laws around it.

It’s more complicated. Teachers can’t take away the phone because it’s an expensive piece of property and it opens all kinds of doors for the school being liable if it goes missing or gets broken. Not to mention if something does happen, the parents might sue the school.

And we aren’t talking about mere distractions, but things designed to keep kids addicted to them. You’re pitting school teachers and admins trying to get kids to pay attention to something often found as boring, against billion dollar businesses pushing punping money into keeping and grabbing kid’s attention. Plus having kids miss school because of a cell phone just doesn’t make sense, especially if the parents are pushing the kid to bring it.

The law just makes it clear and reduces liability for the school, and it’s better for kids.

I wish the world were the way our describe it, and that would work. But it doesn’t.