I absolutely agree. My nephews went to pre-K in Connecticut, and the opportunities available to them absolutely blew my mind. I genuinely believe that there was a measurable dip in their academic progress when my sibling moved back to Texas.
From the metrics side of things, I work with one of the larger districts in Texas, build a lot of reports for the district, and work very closely with the district directors of communication and other leadership. From this perspective, I can tell you that there are a lot of potentially messy scenarios that were addressed before the public ever heard about them. But after these cell phone laws, the amount of resources that went into “crisis response” have plummeted, and moved instead into marketing. Primarily because it’s harder to report and verify incidents without concrete evidence.
Part of these new cell phone laws, and what got a lot of buy-in from districts, was that kids were recording fights in the bathrooms, and that preventing kids from recording the fights would remove the incentive to fight because there wouldn’t be video to upload to social media. But, we haven’t seen a decrease in the number of kids getting written up for fighting; we’ve only had a decrease of community outcry, because they don’t see the fights anymore.
I argue that these cell phone laws were never intended to modify the quality of education or increase the safety of the students, but that they were always intended to merely take away the kids’ ability to verifiably report incidents, or expose issues to the public. Outta sight, outta mind, right? If this were really about getting students to disconnect while they were in school, we wouldn’t give every kid a Chromebook, on which they can look up ridiculous shit, send stupid messages, and leverage LLMs to do all their work for them.
I don’t think that the communities in Texas nor in Connecticut support these laws with the intent to silence their children, and to have blinders put on them. And even if the educational boards and lawmakers in Connecticut aren’t as malicious as the ones here in Texas, they’ll still unintentionally muzzle the students as a side effect.
I lived in Dallas for 3 years while I was doing a postdoctoral fellowship. Kids in Dallas were going to class in trailers. I was also moonlighting doing curriculum design for TX state testing. I would have to grade sample questions answered by students, and like 90% of the responses I got from high schoolers indicated they were barely literate. (FWIW my background is in neuroscience/cognition, not education, and I was developing science test questions for standardized tests.) I opted not to have my family move down to Dallas during the fellowship after seeing how bad education was there.
There are lots of areas like that throughout Texas, unfortunately. In a disappointing number of the campuses in San Antonio, some of the lowest performing schools are the only place where many students get to eat, get new clothes that fit, enjoy HVAC, and not get assaulted by family or neighbors. Many of those schools have unofficial metrics that they prioritize: were the kids safe, did they eat, did they talk to someone if they needed help? What is considered a monumental success in those schools is if the teacher says something that low-performing students find engaging enough to write down.
These are the schools that the state is shutting down. Many of the students are left in a lurch without a safe way to get to their new school. These are generally in areas with high minority representation. It’s almost like Texas’s goal is to fail specific groups of kids.
I read all this, and I can only think about my time in school pre cell phone.
I think about how today, there are in house couselling service centers in nearly every school in the state, staffed by mandated reporters. My school counselor is the reason my abuser went to jail, she helped me.
I dont believe they are taking away thier voice. We all have that. I teach my kid to use his, he’s not muzzled.
We can disagree, we do, and that is okay. I just think the positives outweigh the negatives. Phones were banned in High school when I went (grad. '06) and theyve been banned at my sons school already for years.
The state is just aligning with what most districts have already done here. I appreciate you saying you dont think lawmakers intend to harm children (but they are). least we agree half way?
I absolutely agree. My nephews went to pre-K in Connecticut, and the opportunities available to them absolutely blew my mind. I genuinely believe that there was a measurable dip in their academic progress when my sibling moved back to Texas.
From the metrics side of things, I work with one of the larger districts in Texas, build a lot of reports for the district, and work very closely with the district directors of communication and other leadership. From this perspective, I can tell you that there are a lot of potentially messy scenarios that were addressed before the public ever heard about them. But after these cell phone laws, the amount of resources that went into “crisis response” have plummeted, and moved instead into marketing. Primarily because it’s harder to report and verify incidents without concrete evidence.
Part of these new cell phone laws, and what got a lot of buy-in from districts, was that kids were recording fights in the bathrooms, and that preventing kids from recording the fights would remove the incentive to fight because there wouldn’t be video to upload to social media. But, we haven’t seen a decrease in the number of kids getting written up for fighting; we’ve only had a decrease of community outcry, because they don’t see the fights anymore.
I argue that these cell phone laws were never intended to modify the quality of education or increase the safety of the students, but that they were always intended to merely take away the kids’ ability to verifiably report incidents, or expose issues to the public. Outta sight, outta mind, right? If this were really about getting students to disconnect while they were in school, we wouldn’t give every kid a Chromebook, on which they can look up ridiculous shit, send stupid messages, and leverage LLMs to do all their work for them.
I don’t think that the communities in Texas nor in Connecticut support these laws with the intent to silence their children, and to have blinders put on them. And even if the educational boards and lawmakers in Connecticut aren’t as malicious as the ones here in Texas, they’ll still unintentionally muzzle the students as a side effect.
I lived in Dallas for 3 years while I was doing a postdoctoral fellowship. Kids in Dallas were going to class in trailers. I was also moonlighting doing curriculum design for TX state testing. I would have to grade sample questions answered by students, and like 90% of the responses I got from high schoolers indicated they were barely literate. (FWIW my background is in neuroscience/cognition, not education, and I was developing science test questions for standardized tests.) I opted not to have my family move down to Dallas during the fellowship after seeing how bad education was there.
There are lots of areas like that throughout Texas, unfortunately. In a disappointing number of the campuses in San Antonio, some of the lowest performing schools are the only place where many students get to eat, get new clothes that fit, enjoy HVAC, and not get assaulted by family or neighbors. Many of those schools have unofficial metrics that they prioritize: were the kids safe, did they eat, did they talk to someone if they needed help? What is considered a monumental success in those schools is if the teacher says something that low-performing students find engaging enough to write down.
These are the schools that the state is shutting down. Many of the students are left in a lurch without a safe way to get to their new school. These are generally in areas with high minority representation. It’s almost like Texas’s goal is to fail specific groups of kids.
I read all this, and I can only think about my time in school pre cell phone.
I think about how today, there are in house couselling service centers in nearly every school in the state, staffed by mandated reporters. My school counselor is the reason my abuser went to jail, she helped me.
I dont believe they are taking away thier voice. We all have that. I teach my kid to use his, he’s not muzzled.
We can disagree, we do, and that is okay. I just think the positives outweigh the negatives. Phones were banned in High school when I went (grad. '06) and theyve been banned at my sons school already for years.
The state is just aligning with what most districts have already done here. I appreciate you saying you dont think lawmakers intend to harm children (but they are). least we agree half way?