The Pennsylvania Senate voted 47-3 last Wednesday to enact a school cellphone ban, two days after the House passed it 141-62. On Monday, Josh Shapiro signed it into law. The extremely urgent Senate Bill 1014 requires every public, private, charter and cyber charter school in the state to adopt a policy prohibiting student phone use during the day. Schools have to roll out their policies by the start of the 2027-28 school year. Exceptions cover medical conditions, individualized education plans, translation for English learners and the occasional field day.

Shapiro likely realizes how little this legislation can accomplish on its own. The largest study of school phone bans ever conducted, published in May by economists at Stanford, Duke, Michigan and Penn using data from 4,600 schools, found that strict bans cut non-academic classroom phone use from 61 percent of students to 13 percent. Unfortunately, test scores barely moved. Suspensions rose 16 percent in the first year. Stanford's Thomas Dee called the results "sobering" and still argued for keeping the bans, since the phones remain a well-documented distraction in many other ways. Even more regrettably, the law covers only the school day. The heavy use of social media accounts that the legislative history surrounding the bill blames for the adolescent mental health crisis (and that has surely precipitated a decline in reading) kicks into high gear after dismissal.