Unplugged & Learning

Forbes

a day ago

By the time Jada, an eighth grader at Detroit Achievement Academy, settles into her morning routine with her class, she already knows she won't be pulled into a group chat or sneak a glance at TikTok between classes. Her phone is zipped away in her bookbag, self-secured and self-managed by her, as it is for every student in the building.
And she likes it that way.
'I thought I'd hate it at first,' Jada admits. 'But honestly, it's way better. My classmates and I actually talk to each other at school. And I'm not stressing about what's happening on my phone.'
Across the country, more schools are coming to the same conclusion: cellphones, for all their utility, are making it harder for kids to learn, focus, and just be kids. At Detroit Achievement, the no-cellphone policy is more than just about reducing screen time. It's about protecting time, and space, for students to grow as people.
For Kirstin Stoeckle, Director of Upper School at Detroit Achievement Academy, the decision to ban cellphones wasn't about punishment. It was about presence.
'When people outside our school community meet our middle schoolers, they almost always comment on how engaged they are, with each other and at school, and how they still seem like joyful, happy kids.'
That sense of childhood - of the good kind of boredom, the kind that leads to creativity instead of doomscrolling - is something Stoeckle and her team are determined to protect. In her view, phones aren't just distractions; they're accelerants. They speed kids toward social pressures they may not be ready for and pull them away from the small, formative moments that make up a school day.
'We didn't ban phones so that our kids would stay kids for longer,' she explains, 'but that did certainly happen, and it has been beautiful for everyone involved. They laugh a lot at lunch. They play outside more, often silly games that they created themselves. We're seeing relationships deepen - in person, in real time.'
A growing body of research supports what schools like Detroit Achievement already see every day. In a study spanning four English cities, researchers at the London School of Economics found that banning phones led to a 6.4% increase in test scores - equivalent to an extra hour of instructional time per week. The gains were even more pronounced for low-achieving students, effectively narrowing the achievement gap without a single change to curriculum or staffing.
Further emphasizing the impact on economically disadvantaged students, the study noted that the lowest-achieving students benefited the most, with their test scores increasing by 14.23% of a standard deviation.
In Norway, a similar experiment with middle schools showed students not only performed better academically but were also more likely to go on to advanced secondary programs. The policy didn't just help kids learn more, it helped them believe in what they could do next.
Here in the U.S., schools are catching on. The Bentonville School District in Arkansas banned phones and in just one year recorded a 57% reduction in verbal or physical aggression offenses and a 51% reduction in drug-related offenses, she said. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently announced a bill to make every school in Arkansas phone-free, an effort to re-invest in the mental wellbeing of the state's kids.
In Michigan, new legislation is pushing public schools to adopt similar restrictions, while New York and Florida have already announced bell-to-bell bans in the coming school year.
It's tempting to frame phone bans as a nostalgic return to 'how things used to be,' but the implications are much bigger. Constant access to devices doesn't just fragment attention; it rewires expectations. Students come to see every lull as a void to be filled by content, not conversation. Every moment of discomfort - social, intellectual, emotional - gets outsourced to a screen.
In that environment, deeper learning suffers. So does resilience. Teachers talk about the difference: students who once rushed to Google an answer now pause to wrestle with a hard question. Others who used to eat lunch in silence, eyes locked on their phones, are laughing in circles of friends. It's not magic—it's policy. But the result feels magical.
What makes cellphone bans so compelling is their simplicity. There's no need for massive budget increases or sweeping reform. Just a bookbag or a locked pouch and a clear expectation.
Is it a silver bullet? No. But it might be the cleanest, fastest way to reclaim time, attention, and connection in American schools.
As for Jada, she's already convinced.
'When we went to visit high schools, kids were just by themselves on their phones, like they were in a different place.' she says. 'But, I'm actually here, like, in reality. Does that make sense?'
Yeah. It does make sense, Jada.