> Ban phones from class. For real. Lock down websites that are irrelevant to the subjects being taught. These are all technically possible with the tools schools have. Even Youtube. If something is important enough to show the class, the teacher can show it on their larger screen.

Sure. Teachers would love to ban cellphones and punish kids who disobey. The problem is, the parents who sit on the school boards as trustees won't let them.

Adding parents to the school system has single-handedly destroyed the North American education system. Why is there no homework? Because parents complain that kids find it too hard or too much. Why is there no discipline? Because parents complain that discipline is making their kids miserable. Why is there so much emphasis on schools to teach practical skills? Because parents have abdicated their responsibility to teach these skills at home, where they belong.

Parents are no experts on education yet they get to decide what teachers do in the classrooms. The law of averages dictates that 50% were below average students themselves. Guess who sits on the school boards? It's not the over-achievers, those people are too busy being successful in their careers.

There's a global competition for talent and our children are falling behind. Now you know why.

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throwaway439080 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Guess who sits on the school boards?

People who get elected to sit on the school boards? I think you're actually just complaining about democracy.

My local school district has banned phones during school time (enforced by an auto-locking pouch gadget that releases the phone when school ends), and parents overwhelmingly support it.

	▲	AngryData an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		In my experience school boards are anything but democratic. The only people that heartfully pursue those positions are the handful of assholes that shouldn't be in those positions for any reason. And their election is just a choose your flavor of asshole that can manage a half decent public persona and is sitting on excess capital to blow on marketing. Nobody knows who these people are, even in small towns with life long residency, half the people on the board nobody knows unless they are also on the school board and met them through it. Even if people cared about their board's membership, how do you realistically vet them all without having shit tons of free time to go personally meet them or follow them around?
	▲	bandrami 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> I think you're actually just complaining about democracy Local participatory democracy is in fact pretty terrible: HOAs, school boards, neighborhood impact hearings where people complain that building apartments would let the poors move in and we can't have that.

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philistine an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

My province banned all electronic devices brought by the kids from all schools all at once. No one can complain, it's provincial law.