Texas School District Cell Phone Bans
Early Indicators of Improved Academic Outcomes
Research Question:
Do recently released TEA ratings for the 2024-25 school year show any improvement for districts who implemented cell phone bans prior to that period?
Earlier this summer, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law House Bill 14811, requiring “all school systems to adopt and implement a policy prohibiting the use of personal communication devices by students on school property during the school day,”2 to take effect on September 1st of this year. This makes Texas the 9th state in the nation to do so3; some 31 others have similar measures under consideration.
There has been increasing popular support for such legislation. In Texas districts which implemented such measures prior to this year, initial feedback from stakeholders is overwhelmingly positive. In Houston, for example, district officials cite a 20.9% decline in disciplinary incidents for the 2024-25 school year, which they attribute largely to the ban on student cell phone use implemented in February 20244. Teachers and administrators note an increase in instructional time and improvement to campus culture.
While anecdotal successes and improved metrics in attendance and discipline issues are positive outcomes, there is as yet little quantitative evidence for improvement in learning. The intent of separating students from their devices has social-emotional facets, but the true impetus for this policy is to support educational gain. The proof will come in improved achievement scores and greater year-on-year individual growth, each of which make up a critical part of the rating of each school and district in Texas.
Selection and Preparation of Data
To measure such growth, I researched districts of varying sizes and locations who have implemented cell phone bans in secondary schools in the past few years. I selected Grand Prairie ISD, Katy ISD, Houston ISD, Northside (San Antonio) ISD, and Richardson ISD to analyze alongside Fort Worth ISD, in whose attendance zone I reside. This group of districts ranges in 2023-24 population from around 26,000 to 183,000, with an average Economic Disadvantage (ED) rate of 64.8% (the state is at 62.3%, according to the 2023-24 Texas Academic Performance Report5).
My intent was to determine whether the newly released Accountability Ratings for these districts show any growth attributable to cell phone policies. Many factors, including those listed above, contribute to the rating of a given district. One of the most influential is the district’s ED rate, which is factored proportionally into a category making up 70% of the final rating. For this reason I selected ED as a variable to measure.
Analysis
For comparison of the selected districts, I obtained their ratings for the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-45 school years from the TEA Accountability6 website. Since only three districts (Katy, Houston and Richardson) implemented bans two years ago, I grouped these as “Early Adopters,” which, alongside the two who had one year of results (Grand Prairie and Northside) are my experimental variables. As a control, Fort Worth had not implemented a district-wide ban prior to the current year, and have no ratings influenced by such a policy.
Additionally I compared the districts’ most recently available (2024) Algebra I growth indicator scores, part of their rating, against their Economic Disadvantage rates in the same year. I selected this metric because of its unique relation to future academic and economic success7. Students who do not successfully complete Algebra I their Freshman year have between 13% and 21% chance of graduating on time8. The repercussions for these students and their families affect the economy of our state as well as their personal welfare, making Algebra I a vital indicator of future success.
To determine the influence of Economic Disadvantage, I fit a regression line in RStudio and compared the residuals for each datapoint. This revealed higher than expected results for Katy ISD and Grand Prairie ISD, based on their respective Economic Disadvantage rates, and lower results in particular for Richardson ISD. In real terms, Houston ISD outperformed its economic status considerably, which will be shown in visualization below.
Data used in this study is available on the first tab of this document. Columns O-V on the second tab were compiled using ChatGPT, and sources are linked. All other data was pulled August 15, 2025 from the TEA Accountability and TAPR sites.
Visualization
In the graph below, based on the residual analysis described above, I utilized Tableau’s circle view to demonstrate the relationship between district population (the size of each circle), rate of Economic Disadvantage (horizontal axis) and Algebra I growth rate for 2023-24 (vertical axis). This visualization style is particularly useful for clear interpretation of data and I look forward to exploring it further.
The graph at the top of this article was created in RStudio, using the ggplot package. A brief discussion of my conclusions follows.
Conclusion and Further Analysis
Next steps for analysis should include an attempt to remove the influence of the Economic Disadvantage factor from the district rating analysis. This would not necessarily show the true effect of cell phone bans on district outcomes; however, by removing the weight of the economic factors, the accuracy of analysis would improve.
As it stands, the results are clear. Districts in this study that have implemented two years of cell phone ban policies have grown faster than comparison districts. Richardson ISD and Houston ISD in particular stand out as surpassing the results of others that were higher-rated two years ago.
As further results become available at district and campus level, many interested parties will continue to comb through the data for results. Many school districts have invested heavily in sealed pouches to support this program9 and boards across the state will be looking for a return. If early indicators are indicative of future growth, stakeholders at all levels should be well rewarded for this change.
