Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027
expats.cz
expats.cz
1.City introduces bike lanes on street.
2. Residents complain about parking spaces going away, businesses complain about future bankruptcies due to fewer customers, general uproar is huge.
3. Residents discover bike lanes are quiet, and they also reduce ambient noise levels due to reduced car traffic, air is also cleaner, roads and intersections are safer.
4. Businesses (re) discover that cars don't buy things, people in big metal boxes going 50+kmph don't buy as many things. But people biking and walking are... foot traffic... and business goes up.
5. City decides to introduce bike lanes on another street.
6. Cycle repeats.
To your point about phones, it is very effective. If nobody can take their phone out on the school premise, suddenly it's very obvious who's trying to break the rule and guess what. Kids play, kids talk face to face, etc.
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[1] This type of comment is one of the first things posted for these types of articles.
7. right-wing gains power and bans bike lanes anyway, labeling them "leftist"
city after city in various states/countries
but back to phones
the real problem is they can't rule that parents must be responsible for their children
I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating
because of course it's a problem, but it's not the root cause of the problem
ps. I am so old we weren't allowed to have calculators in school, absolutely forbidden
It's impossible for the average parent to police their child's smartphone. They just don't have, and never will have, the technical skills.
> I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating
And for those parents, which are quite rare, that do have the technical skills AND the involvement to ban smartphone usage at young ages, guess what. When Joey and Mickey and Sarah all have smartphones and are doom scrolling TikTok, even those parents lose. If all socializing moves to smartphones, the weirdo kids that don't have them or access to the "cool stuff" are automatically excluded. It's extremely alienating and nothing like not having calculators or PCs.
Back in your day (or mine), huge corporations more akin to drug dealers employing tens of psychologists weren't trying to get kids addicted to calculators.
99% of the time the business owners are really just mad that they personally cannot park directly outside their business anymore. They may cite nonsensical things like 2 less parking spaces outside their business will lead to less customers, but what they are really mad about is their own personal parking space going away. Very dumb and selfish
Except that 3 doesn't actually happen... Bike lanes stay empty and kill businesses.
In Seattle and Portland the businesses within 1 block of new bike lanes declined faster after 2019.
I wonder if there was some event that generally killed businesses relying on foot traffic some time after 2019 that could help explain that outcome. Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.
There is very little good-quality research on wider impact of bike lanes on business in the US. One pre-COVID study found little effect in either direction when a large LA neighborhood added bike lanes.
The only definitive result for the US is that bike lanes have very little impact on the absolute percentage of bike commutes (it stays around 2-3%).
If you look at research on bike lanes in American cities (or in other well-designed human-oriented modern cities), they typically _at_ _most_ don't affect businesses. There's scarce evidence of them helping anything but creating traffic jams.
> Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.
I live in Seattle, and that's what initially motivated me too look at modern urbanism. I was very much a proponent of "stong towns", transit, and all other stuff before. Then I noticed that areas that get an "urbanistic renewal" always get worse around here, and that was even before COVID.
Now the difference is just stark. Seattle Downtown is a ghost town. Bellevue (a city across the lake from Seattle) did not do anything significant with its downtown car infrastructure, and it's thriving. And even in _Seattle_ a place called "University Village" is doing fine. Because it's away from transit, bike lanes, and has a lot of free parking.
Sauce: Culver City Move Pilot Report, page 59 https://www.culvercity.gov/files/content/public/v/8/services...
From 2020 [2]: > "Both the trend analysis and DID analysis show that the protected bike lane on Second Avenue corridor positively impacted employment, especially in the retail sector, when compared to the Fourth Avenue control corridor"
> "In conclusion, the protected bike lane on Broadway triggered a significant employment increase in the food services industry after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."
The overall study finds that
> - On the Second Avenue corridor, the protected two-way bike lane contributed to higher employment and improved business vitality in the retail sector. - On Broadway Avenue, we find that the protected bike lane triggered a significant positive impact on food services employment after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."
and > In terms of retail service sector, we found either mixed results or insignificant results. [...] However, the insignificant results may be significant in this context, indicating that there does not appear to be a negative causal impact of right-of-way or parking lane removal on economic outcomes.
Anecdotally, many people in Seattle seem to use the bike lanes, even to commute to work. I also saw a lot of people using them during the world cup.
[1]https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/06/seattle-case-study... [2] https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/National-Stree...
And yes, I'm _very_ aware of these papers. I used the same methodology as they did :) Note the timestamp on them, they are from the time when Seattle was booming.
And I even specifically looked at the Fourth Avenue that they used as a control because it also got a protected bike lane.
I have _not_ yet checked this hypothesis thoroughly, but from a cursory look at the data, the increase in business can be explained by highly-paid professionals moving into dense housing nearby (we can see that by looking at real estate prices and historical apartment rent data) and by tourists from cruise ships. It's further corroborated by the fact that the percentage of bike commutes did not increase significantly enough.
Is your study discovering the effects of... COVID-19? I guess you've just discovered your own analogy of https://xkcd.com/1138/
Before the ban, students would just openly use devices during class. Teachers were essentially powerless to do anything. Kids would be openly playing games, watching videos, etc with practically no recourse.
Now with the state law actually forcing it, enforcement is mugh higher. If phones are caught out the administration takes the devices and requires a parent to come into the school to sign off and release the device.
Does some usage still happen? Sure. Is it far less than before and considerably less during actual classtime? Absolutely.
It's like you're arguing murder still happens even though it's illegal so what's the point of making it a crime.
https://ed.stanford.edu/news/national-study-school-cell-phon...
Czech schools: "The new measure, which has been at the center of heated debates in recent months, will apply in kindergartens and elementary schools, most likely from September 2027. ... It doesn't apply, however, to secondary schools, universities or vocational schools."
The Stanford study was based on "more than 43,000 middle and high schools nationwide".
Also, while half of the authors are Stanford research associates, the other half are at other institutions. The publication is a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
And from the preregistration, "Our measure of treatment (i.e., whether a given school has a true phone ban at a particular point in time) is based on organizing sales and shipping data from Yondr (i.e., a company that sells lockable phone pouches)", a company they partnered with for the study.
How .. odd. Is sales data for a single company really the right way to tell if a school has a true phone ban?
Czechia was one of the, if not the last country in EU without nationwide smartphone regulation
Btw I can't imagine putting my kids in education system in country where you don't have home schooling alternative to state indoctrination in case you need it. And German 2015 immigration crisis and green deal clearly show us your leaders can't be trusted at all.
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/palo-alto-schools/2026/07/10/...
https://www.fournorms.com/campaigns/petition-for-intentional...
For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change?
Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"?
You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to provide measurable improvements.
Studies show phone bans help school performance, albeit not by much immediately, but there’s not much upside.
You can easily see the effect of COVID in PISA scores for example.
How much higher will Czechia's score be on the next PISA test based on this?
France:
>Mobile phones have been prohibited for students from 3 to 15 years of age, since September 2018, although they were first banned in classroom time in 2010.
French PISA results for math, science, reading:
* 2022: 474, 487, 474
* 2018: 495, 493, 493
* 2015: 493, 495, 499
* 2012: 495, 499, 505
* 2009: 497, 498, 496
I'm really impressed by the improvements of nothing.
This is NOT how an intelligent person draws their conclusions. It's Facebook-level fear mongering, not worthy of HN.
Children’s freedoms ought to be limited, yes.
So many people have wacky ideas on how to raise kids these days. I question the effectiveness of laws like these, but they are worth trying out. And I think a lot of parents in my generation (millenials) need some serious assistance with teaching kids boundaries.
Keep in mind that, while you feel like they’re millenials because you are one yourself, many of these people might be kids themselves. That’s the problem with children having access with the internet: there cannot be no boundaries anymore, everyone is an equal being their anonymous account.
My parents were sure that sitting too close to a TV ruined your eyesight. Should we get a law that forces people to sit at least X meters from the TV? Personally I'd like to see some evidence first, instead of "but we must limit freedoms".
Just because they aren’t ready to make informed decisions, yes. If they were ready, they’d be called adults.
> My parents were sure that sitting too close to a TV ruined your eyesight. Should we get a law that forces people to sit at least X meters from the TV?
It is children’s freedoms that ought to be restricted. Not their parents’. If you don’t understand the difference, that’s a problem.
(yes, yes, with obvious exemptions for special needs, computer science classes and so on).
This is a freedom-from / freedom-to distinction. Once you look at kids as a social group rather than as a single individual I think you can come to very different conclusions about what is on balance healthier.
What logic is this?
I think people like you are the reason I’m a strong supporter of the concept that people should pass an evaluation and get a permit to have a child.
Of course the freedom of choice for children is limited because their brains are not mature enough to make an educated decision and quite gullible. That’s why it’s illegal for them to drink alcohol, drive vehicles and smoke cigarettes.
Of course that, like literacy tests for voting, will never be gamed.
Because to be it looks like you are the gullible ones because you are not making educated decisions. France banned mobile phones in school in 2018. Suddenly some kind of a ban had been in place since 2010. Go look at their PISA scores and see if you can notice any improvement. Because I can't.
How can you even call others gullible when the measures you're talking about don't actually show up in measurements of education systems?
But you don't need study to know kids staring at phones instead of talking and playing together is improvement.
Schools can already say "no phones during instructional hours". Many of them do. I guess legislating it can mandate the policy across a school district, state, country etc., so perhaps that makes sense.
But others call for outright bans for kids, all the time. Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.
My SO teaches English and struggles with it permanently. Kids are on their phones and not paying attention to the lecture. And no support from the headmaster. Other teachers claim they do not have the problem to save face, but then you talk to an expat teacher who was in their class for observation and hear something else.
Is this true? When I was in high school, teachers could take away your phones.
And even then, if the teacher trips the box, it is on them to reimburse owners for broken phones.
Same effect, a difference with only a nominal distinction.
If you talk with teachers, some of them complain that kids are on the phone with _parents_ during the class time. And that parents loudly complain to the headmaster if the teacher tries to prevent their child from speaking to them.
Yes, it sounds crazy, but it's true.
Being a parent or a teacher puts you in a position of fighting multi-billion dollar corporate interests that are trying to capture your kids' attention. It's also fighting their very successful advertising campaigns that makes kids, just like adults, feel FOMO for not having the latest gadgets, or access to the same social media outlets as their peers.
Any public policy trying to counter this needs some weight behind it, and a strong consensus as to what we value as normative behavior in society.
If you want to talk about successful advertising campaigns, things like age verification laws are actually being lobbied by Meta. In other words, Meta wants to do this and is spending money to make it happen. That should make you suspicious.
> Being a parent
I am a parent. I really hate it when people pull out this "parents say this ..." crap as if it's a shortcut to winning an argument. They don't want to have a discussion on the merits. A lot of the people pulling out that line seem to be childless, if it matters.
I don’t understand why this isn’t done now?
They were supposed to use the calendar for assignments (and were given time to use the calendar), the teacher would tell them to take a picture of the white board with their homework assignment on it, and they used some private app (don't know the name of it) for messaging the teacher.
This was a few years ago though, so maybe now the tide has turned?
Edit: The rules have changed:
https://tea.texas.gov/taa-letters/implementation-texas-house...
I’m strongly against phones in school, but as a child myself, I was extremely unorganized. And did not get my act together fully until college, when I had a simple laptop with a calendar app where I could plan out all my classes, assignments, etc.
(Edit: obviously will need some accommodations for disabled students, and computer labs will have to exist for technical literacy classes.)
I'm fairly certain schools had projectors a few decades ago, and nothing bad came of it.
You don't really need to ban phones from schools; just ban them in class. I don't know why this stuff is treated as such a big deal. Students should pay attention in class, which means not using anything (not devices, paper, books, etc.) except as needed for instruction.
None of these tools is designed for the sole purpose of interacting with random people on the internet.
A child can get all the potential benefits of a phone from books, radio, film, television and game consoles — all the while not interacting with random people on the internet.
But I wouldn't oppose banning those as long as the schools provided an AlphaSmart (because again, I'm really bad at handwriting). I think e-readers would be best but those are expensive.
I think banning tools for teachers, like projectors, is unnecessary. I suspect I learned easier from projected computer screens vs. staring at a whiteboard, but anything projected on the screen (e.g. powerpoint presentations) could be passed to students on paper, except movies but those may rarely be necessary.
Either way, when you're an adult, assuming you would be in a workplace, you're maturity should decide. If you want to be a distracted employee and risk termination, you're an adult.