I think banning phones in schools is an urgent need, at the very least.
I get that a lot of the "power" that teachers had was inappropriate, just as spanking, but now they often can't even call the parents and have the child sent home. If you can't do anything about a student disobeying the rules, what can you do?
It's not the teachers' fault, and expecting them to fix the situation is pointless.
I'm told that at least some of the campaigners were originally aiming for just liquor, not all alcohol.
I won't be surprised if history repeats, and some chunk of the world bans all social media (including forums like this one) despite the majority of the harm being concentrated into specific social networks and the strong drive that led to it being a thing in the first place.
People adapt
When I was in school every single classroom was wired for landlines and Ethernet. You can also set up your wifi networks in ways that limit certain things and not others.
Alright, but they're not wired now. Neither are bathrooms, cafeterias, hallways, or other place where someone might have a stroke, a heart attack, a seizure. And unfortunately, gunmen in school are a thing, and if you're a teacher, scrambling for the wall-phone while you can hear gunshots in the next room over is significantly more difficult than reaching into your pocket for your phone.
If phones in schools really are bad for kids, it seems like we could probably sort out some of these objections?
But I would think that the telecom industry does not want that.