Should smartphones be banned in K-12 schools nationwide?

America is debating this like it is a radical experiment, but France banned phones in primary and middle schools back in 2018, and the sky did not fall. The Netherlands followed with its own classroom ban, and UNESCO called for restrictions worldwide the same year Florida acted. This is now the international norm, not a fringe idea, and every country that has done it reports the same pattern: teachers get their classrooms back, students talk to each other again, and the predicted catastrophe of unreachable children never materializes because schools still have office phones. The US loves to lecture other countries about education while trailing them on the obvious fixes. A nationwide ban would not be an experiment. It would be catching up. BBC