Rich Nye, a senior advisor for educational policy for the Utah Spencer Cox government, testifies at the hearing of the American House subcommittee on early childhood education, basic and average on June 10, 2025.
Washington – concerns about the use of mobile phones in classes took the central place on Tuesday at the hearing in the American educational panel, because more and more states are seeking to ban or limit the use of mobile phones and other electronic devices during teaching.
Although the legislators from both sides recognized damage that the excessive use of a mobile phone can create for students, regardless of whether they affect their well -being, interpersonal skills or attention in the classroom, democrats also criticized the cancellation of Trump’s administration at the beginning of this year in the amount of about $ 1 billion in school mental health subsidies among wider efforts to eliminate the US education department.
State level drive to limit the use of a cell phone in the classroom was two -sided.
So far in 2025, state governors AlabamaIN ArcansaIN GeorgiaIN IowaIN Northern DakotaIN NebragaIN OxoplaholaIN Utah AND Western Virginia I have already signed the provisions that introduced bans.
“The screens are now ubiquitous, mainly in the form of students’ mobile phones, paying attention from interactive discussion and instructions,” said representative Kevin Kiley, chairman of the American House subcommittee on early childhood, basic and average education, during the audition of the panel. The subcommittee is part of the Education and Working Form Committee.
“Too often, students spend most of the days with their heads, scrolling thumbs and only a fraction cooperating with more and more discouraged teachers,” said California Republican.
New Utah law
One witness, Rich Nye, senior education policy advisor for the Utah Spencer Cox government, advertised Bill Cox signed At the beginning of this year, which “prohibits the student to use a mobile phone, an intelligent watch or developing technology in class hours.”
A nationwide ban, which allows for specific exemptions, is to apply on July 1.
Before the law becoming law, COX sent letters to the leaders of the District and Charter Schools, school heads, members of the Council of the School Community and the State Education Council in 2024. Calling teachers To remove mobile phones during classes, noting that “learning environment without a phone will help our teachers learn and learn our students.”
Representative Utah Gop Burgess Owens applauded his country’s efforts.
“Technology can often be a multiplier of strength in working force, but we need to better understand implications when we expose our children to digital devices and what long-term effects can be,” he said.
Demts blow up huge cuts in mental health subsidies
Meanwhile, Democrats this year sought the administration decision to stop financing About $ 1 billion in subsidies for mental healthcare students through double -sided safer communities in 2022.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a member of the subcommittee, said: “These programs ended without notifying states and without escape to help students who depend on them.”
“Subsidies provided financing for mental health specialists, support services, resources for preventing suicides, for schools in districts that desperately need them,” said Oregon Democrat.
Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, president and general director of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, emphasized the legislators the need to restore the subsidy.
Holcomb-McCoy said that the end of the subsidy “left districts, teachers, directors and curators without critical support, which they need students in crisis, especially those affected by excessive time on the screen.”
“I also notice that many of my colleagues on the other side of the passage and officials in administration often claim that the federal government should not make decisions for local schools,” said Bonamici. “As in the case of decisions regarding the curriculum, technological policy should be managed by state and local officials.”
The democratic representative in Pennsylvania Summer Lee said that the cancellation of the subsidy makes him wonder how “Republicans will ask us for a real conversation about the harmful effects of time on the screen in schools, when they allow administration to dismantle the Department of Education and all support structures for schools, program, Afl, and a penny.”
Trump and its administration tried to dramatically transform a federal role in education, including an executive order calling Education Secretary Linda McMahon To facilitate the closure of your own department, looking Over 1,300 employees at the threat agency Understand funds for schools which use the practices of diversity, justice and inclusion, as well as repression of the “vocals” of higher education.
But Federal judges To have temporarily blocked Many of these efforts.
