Do Phone Bans Improve Test Scores? Why Not Yet

Do phone bans improve test scores? So far, on average, barely. The largest US study, covering about 4,600 schools that locked phones in pouches, found test-score effects “consistently close to zero” over three years. A Florida district study found scores flat in year one and up about 3.5 percentiles by year two. Neither result means bans failed. It means test scores are the slowest, noisiest outcome a school can measure, and several predictable forces hold them down early. If your district banned phones this fall and your child’s report card looks the same in June, here is why, and what to look at instead.

Key Takeaways

• In the national NBER study, average test-score effects stayed close to zero for three years, with small gains in high school math and small losses in middle school.
• In one large Florida district, scores held steady in year one and rose about 3.5 percentiles by the end of year two. Fewer unexcused absences explained nearly half of the gain.
• Year one is disrupted: suspensions rose 16% nationally and 25% in Florida before returning to normal.
• Gains concentrate where phone use was highest before the ban and, in several studies, among lower-achieving students. Averages dilute those effects.
• The order of change is roughly: phone use first, then discipline and wellbeing settle, then attendance, and scores last.

Do Phone Bans Improve Test Scores? What the Data Show So Far

A school phone ban is a policy that removes students’ personal phones from use during part or all of the school day. The question of whether it improves test scores now has three kinds of answers, and they don’t fully agree.

The national average: close to zero. NBER Working Paper 35132, by Allcott, Baron, Dee, Duckworth, Gentzkow and Jacob, uses sales records from the largest pouch provider to time when about 4,600 schools began locking phones away. Average effects on test scores were “consistently close to zero.” High schools saw modest positive effects, mainly in math. Middle schools saw small negative effects. The paper is a working paper and has not yet been peer-reviewed. We break down its full results in the NBER phone ban study explained.

One district: a year-two gain. David Figlio and Umut Özek studied one of the 10 largest US districts, in Florida, which imposed a strict bell-to-bell ban in 2023–24. Writing in Education Next in May 2026, they report scores stable in year one and up about 3.5 percentiles compared with the pre-ban spring by the end of year two. (Elsewhere in the same article they give “about 4 percentiles”; the figure depends on which test window is compared.)

Other countries: mixed, with gains for some groups. Beland and Murphy’s 2016 study of schools in four English cities, in Labour Economics, found exam scores rose about 0.07 standard deviations after bans, driven by the lowest-achieving students. A Norwegian working paper by Abrahamsson found no average effect on grades or mental health but improvements for girls, especially from lower-income families, including better GPAs and fewer visits for psychological symptoms.

So the honest answer is “not much, not yet, not for everyone.” The more useful question is why.

Five Reasons Early Score Effects Are Small

1. Year one is a disrupted year

Both major US studies found discipline spikes. Suspensions rose about 16% in the national study’s first year and 25% in the Florida district. In Florida, in-school suspensions for Black students at high-use schools rose about 30%. A suspended student misses instruction, and a classroom spending energy on enforcement covers less material. Both studies found discipline back to normal by year two. A ban’s academic payoff can’t start until the friction stops.

2. Learning accumulates; tests sample it once a year

A standardized test measures what a student knows after months of instruction. Removing phones changes how much attention a child brings to each lesson, but that attention has to compound into knowledge before it shows up. Florida’s data show this shape: flat in fall and winter of year one, rising through year two. A ban that started in August 2026 cannot be judged on a test taken in May 2027.

3. Averages blend schools where phones mattered with schools where they didn’t

In Florida, the researchers compared schools with the highest and lowest phone use before the ban. High-use schools gained about 1.1 percentiles more on spring tests. In schools where students were rarely on phones anyway, there was less to fix. A national average across 4,600 schools mixes both kinds, which pulls the estimate toward zero.

The same logic applies to students. Beland and Murphy found gains among the lowest achievers. Abrahamsson found gains among girls from lower-income families. When effects sit in a subgroup, the overall average looks small even if some kids benefit meaningfully.

4. Enforcement fades

A ban that slips loses its effect. Brookings researchers at USC surveyed teens at the start and end of 2025–26 and found the share reporting phone use in core classes rose from 28% to 42% over the year. In schools with instruction-only rules, it climbed from 32% to over 50%. Forty-four percent of teens said teachers became less strict. If the dose falls, the effect falls with it. We look at this decay in detail in why phone bans are slipping.

5. Removing a distraction doesn’t add teaching

This is the engineer’s point. A pouch removes an input. It does not change the curriculum, the teacher’s schedule or the homework. Thomas Dee, a co-author of the national study, put it this way to the Associated Press: getting phone use down is “a critical antecedent” to academic gains. Necessary, maybe. Sufficient, no. Schools that use the recovered attention well should pull ahead of schools that simply bank it.

Which Outcomes Improve First

If test scores are the last domino, what falls first? Pulling the studies together, here is the sequence as best the evidence shows it.

Outcome	When it changed	Direction	Source
Phone use during class	Immediately (year 1)	In-class use fell from 61% to 13% (national); daily phone visits fell over 80% in Florida high schools	NBER 2026; Figlio & Özek 2026
Discipline and suspensions	Year 1 spike, normal by year 2	Up 16% (national), up 25% (Florida), then back to baseline	NBER 2026; Figlio & Özek 2026
Student wellbeing	Dips in year 1, positive by years 2–3	Above baseline within three years (national)	NBER 2026, via AP
Unexcused absences	Years 1 and 2	Down 5–10% in Florida middle and high schools; little change nationally	Figlio & Özek 2026; NBER 2026
Social interaction at school	Within months, by reports	More talk and noise at lunch and in hallways, by teacher and advocate accounts; not yet systematically measured	Haidt, Katie Couric Media interview, Oct. 2026
Test scores	Year 2 or later, if at all	Flat in year 1; +3.5 percentiles by end of year 2 (Florida); near zero on average for three years (national)	Figlio & Özek 2026; NBER 2026

The attendance row deserves a closer look. Figlio and Özek estimate that the drop in unexcused absences in middle and high schools is large enough to explain nearly half of the year-two test gain. That suggests a mechanism: school became a place students were more willing to show up to. They caution that absences may stand in for other, unmeasured changes in school climate. More on that in Florida’s phone ban and the attendance effect.

What Parents Can Do While the Scores Catch Up

Measure what moves first

Ask your child about lunch, friends and how class feels, not just grades. The research says those change before scores do. If your child tells you lunch is louder and they’re talking to new people, the ban is doing its early work.

Ask how your school is using the time

Since a ban only removes a distraction, ask what the school is adding. Are teachers assigning more in-class discussion, reading or problem-solving now that phones are out? Districts that pair bans with more activities, as Spokane did with clubs and sports, give the recovered attention somewhere to go.

Watch enforcement, not the policy document

A strong policy on paper matters less than consistent practice. If your teen reports that “nobody checks anymore,” that is the decay pattern in the USC data. Raise it at a parent meeting as a question, not a complaint: how is the rule holding up in spring?

Pay attention to who is getting disciplined

The Florida study found discipline fell hardest on Black students in year one. If your child, or children you know, are being suspended over phones, ask the school whether warnings and day-end confiscation come first. Lost class time works against the very goal of the ban.

What not to do

Don’t conclude the ban “didn’t work” from one year of report cards, and don’t expect it to fix a grade problem on its own. If your child is struggling academically, the cause is unlikely to be only the phone, and the fix is unlikely to be only the pouch.

What to Watch For Over the Next 3 Months

• Week 4: Is your child adjusting, or still fighting the rule daily? Grumbling is normal. Repeated discipline is a reason to talk to the school.
• Month 2 red flags: Your child reports that rules are no longer enforced, or that classmates use phones openly. Expect this; the USC data show slippage across the year. Ask the school about it.
• Month 3 self-check: Look at attendance and engagement before grades. Is your child more willing to go to school? Mentioning friends more? Those are the leading indicators. Grades will follow, or not, next year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do phone bans improve test scores?

On average, not much in the first few years. The national NBER study found effects close to zero over three years. A Florida district found about a 3.5-percentile gain by year two, concentrated in schools that had high phone use. Gains also appear larger for lower-achieving students in some studies.

Why did suspensions go up after phone bans?

Enforcing a new rule creates conflicts, especially early on. Suspensions rose about 16% nationally and 25% in one Florida district in year one, then returned to normal by year two. Researchers attribute the spike to short-term disruption as students and staff adjusted.

How long before a phone ban affects grades?

The best evidence suggests at least two years. Florida’s scores were flat in year one and rose in year two. The national study had not found an average gain after three years. Phone use, discipline, wellbeing and attendance all change sooner.

Are bell-to-bell bans better than class-only bans for learning?

The evidence suggests they hold up better. USC survey data show phone use in core classes rose to over 50% under instruction-only rules by the end of a school year, versus 35% under bell-to-bell rules. Direct comparisons of learning outcomes by policy type are still limited.

Should I worry if my school’s ban hasn’t changed my child’s grades?

Not after one year. Grades are a lagging measure. Look first at whether your child is more engaged, attends more willingly and spends less time on the phone during the day. If grades are a real concern, address them directly with the teacher.

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About the author

Ricky Flores is the founder of HiWave Makers and an electrical engineer with 15+ years of experience building consumer technology at Apple, Samsung, and Texas Instruments. He writes about how kids learn to build, think, and create in a tech-saturated world. Read more at hiwavemakers.com.

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Sources

1. Allcott, H., Baron, E. J., Dee, T., Duckworth, A. L., Gentzkow, M., & Jacob, B. (2026). “The Effects of School Phone Bans: National Evidence from Lockable Pouches.” NBER Working Paper 35132. https://www.nber.org/papers/w35132
2. Associated Press. (2026). “Largest-ever study of school cellphone bans finds mixed results.” NBC News, May 5, 2026. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/largest-ever-study-school-cell-phone-bans-finds-mixed-results-rcna343761
3. Figlio, D. N., & Özek, U. (2026). “Can Banning Cellphones Save Student Learning? Evidence from Florida.” Education Next, 26(2). https://www.educationnext.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ednext_26_2_research_figlio_ozek.pdf
4. Beland, L.-P., & Murphy, R. (2016). “Ill Communication: Technology, distraction & student performance.” Labour Economics, 41, 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004
5. Abrahamsson, S. (2024). “Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health.” SSRN working paper. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4735240
6. Silver, D., Rapaport, A., & Polikoff, M. (2026). “A year later: What teens tell us about school cellphone bans.” Brookings Institution, September 10, 2026. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-year-later-what-teens-tell-us-about-school-cellphone-bans/
7. Katie Couric Media. (2026). “Are Phone-Free Schools Working? Jonathan Haidt Weighs In.” October 27, 2026. https://katiecouric.com/?p=282070