I graduated in 2013 and my first two years of highschool we lost our extracurricular classes, music and theater, which only came back in my senior year, so I definitely understand that. My class was on the cusp, as now schools bring in programs like the one I work with in order to teach them music and theater. It is not nearly the same as an actual course.

I think the examples you mention have been exacerbated by the changes made during Sec. Of Education's Betsy DeVoss time, which some states have really shined to, so I think this is something that varies widely by region. California instituted few of the national policies outside of the leniencies on homeschooling curriculums, so so just like California in 2016, some states in 2020 are doing the same by igno, and these states that have weaker support for education have suffered immensely. I cannot even imagine what the landscape looks like in Arizona, Texas, the Carolina's/Dakota's, Florida.

In that regard I definitely don't disagree, but I've noticed that our current Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, the pushes have been trying to make public schools more able to deal with the problems they have on their own - here's money set aside, here's better Internet for your schools... Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis just cut funding for arts programs entirely in Florida.

So if the states don't want the help and avoid the wider national policies put in place to help them, I really have to wonder how much of it is regional microcosms that are actively trying to impede on the public education system from being effective. Or rather, a branch of our government that doesn't want to educate people. To that end, I don't think the education system should be dismantled and I don't think the original commenter necessarily does either. It's clearly flawed since not even 2 different states, but 2 different local counties have wildly different experiences, just based on the county's school board and how rich the area may happen to be.

From personal experience, John F. Kennedy high school, or "Jail For Kids", in my freshman year I witnessed our senior class try and join the U.C. Berkeley College walkouts, which resulted in a student getting tased when an altercation between a student and an officer happened resulting in a stampede, which the tasing prevented. I mentioned the lockdowns, but not that it wasn't entirely uncommon for them to last over 2 hours after the end of the day, but we couldn't leave due to safety concerns. My sophomore year we had metal detectors installed at the entrance (due to students bringing guns on campus). So I definitely understand how easily it has shifted into what you're talking about with your partners experience.

I just wonder how much of the changes are in areas where education isn't something that matters to the politicians making the local policy. I know for a fact that some areas are unaffected entirely, my friends ritzy high school in Malibu and my local highschool in Orinda for rich white students are still making kids doctors and senators both in the top 400 schools in the U.S.

I don't know what solution there is, other than making all aspects of education the most imperative factor to the success of the U.S. Clearly that's not of interest, but I can't trust homeschooling either because of how heavily co-opted it has become by the anti-vax/alt right crowd, and that every homeschooled child I worked with in California were not on the same level as their peers and didn't have basic foundations -- high schoolers who are struggling with sentence structure.

And I know literacy has become an even more widespread issue through and post-covid, but if homeschooling is the answer to combat it and the students I've met are even further behind... Granted, I'm just one person in one area and I don't expect this to be how it is everywhere, but anytime I hear about it online, the people working with homeschooled children say they're struggling and the people trying to homeschool their kids are complaining about the state requirements. It just doesn't give me a lot of hope.

Anyway, I went on a bit of a tangent. I agree with your last sentence entirely, I've just also seen the damage that not caring about phones in class has had on the students. Post Covid screen dependency is an ongoing symptom of a wider issue though, and I agree that restriction of them at all isn't the solution.

My personal stance has always been accountability to the individual, so if you're using it in class for work then I'm fine with it. That means, using it when it's appropriate and practicing self control/focus by limiting what you do on the device. This inherently forces the students to not have it at specific times, while encouraging using all the tools at their disposal. And if a student is playing around on their phone, I ask them to leave the class or write their notes by hand for the rest of it.

It's okay to get bored or get distracted, and it's okay for a teacher to set a reasonable boundary. We are an outside program, so the students 97% of the time want to be there and a majority of the time have no reason to be on their phone in the first place (are you really going to be texting while dancing, acting, or playing an instrument?). But full on authoritarianism is never the way, it's frustrating that it's like... the go to solution instead of doing the work to figure out what needs to be changed.