Not having distraction devices in a classroom is such a basic concept. I'm surprised it required government intervention. Every half decent school principal should've banned them in their school, and if the principal didn't, the individual teachers should have banned them from their classrooms. The first time a kid had to have a question repeated to them because they were looking at their phone should've been the last time phones were permitted in that class.

Part of the problem is with each step down the ladder there's less authority and support and more chances for blowback from angry parents going higher up the chain. Teachers fear not getting support from principals if they're DIYing a device ban, principals fear blowback from complaints to the board or superintendent etc.

There's also the normalization problem at the teacher level where kids are used to using them in other classes so it's a bigger lift to get different behavior in one specific class.