Schools that locked up student smartphones during the day cut in-class phone use by roughly 80%, yet saw near-zero average gains in standardized test scores. High schools and middle schools are trending in opposite directions.
A from the National Bureau of Economic Research examined nearly 1,800 schools using Yondr lockable pouches, drawing on GPS pings, state test records, disciplinary data, and student surveys across multiple years.
The study found that phone activity during school hours dropped by approximately 30% as measured by GPS data in the third year after adoption, and teacher-reported personal phone use in class fell from 61% of students to 13%. Despite that reduction in scale, overall test score effects were statistically indistinguishable across math and English language arts combined.
The grade-level split is where superintendents will want to pay closest attention. High schools showed modest positive math gains equivalent to roughly a 0.9% increase in the score distribution, comparable to about one-fifth of the academic boost associated with a higher-quality teacher.
Middle schools moved in the other direction, showing small negative effects in math at roughly half the magnitude of the high school gains. Researchers suggest younger students may substitute phone time with other disruptive peer behavior rather than redirecting attention toward learning.
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Discipline data adds another operational consideration. Suspension rates rose by roughly 16% in the first year after pouch adoption before fading in subsequent years, a pattern the researchers attribute to the enforcement burden of introducing any new restriction.
Student well-being followed a similar arc: it declined sharply at implementation and then recovered, turning positive by the second post-adoption year. Attendance, classroom attention, and perceived online bullying showed no meaningful change across the study period.
The findings come as two-thirds of U.S. states have enacted legislation restricting student phone access, leaving district leaders to navigate implementation without clear outcome guarantees. Roughly 62% of schools that adopted Yondr had previously operated under loose “no-show” policies, making the pouch a significant tightening rather than a marginal adjustment.
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