Page 58 - EW July 2024

International News

increases. “Adolescence is influenced by multiple things
(sic),” says Margarita Panayiotou, a researcher at the Uni-
versity of Manchester. “It would be unrealistic to expect that
one thing — social media — is driving adolescent mental
health.”
Most parents want their children to have phones avail-
able at school. In February, the National Parents’ Union,
an advocacy group, polled 1,506 public-school parents and
found that a majority think that pupils should be allowed
to use phones during free time. Larry McEwen, a parent
at Deal and the school’s basketball coach, agrees. He be-
lieves pupils should have phones for emergencies. He and
Eva King cited a lockdown last year at a nearby school be-
cause of a gun scare. That was when having phones came
in handy. US middle school children: heated debates
Yet the devices are plainly disruptive. Pupils can receive
more than 50 notifications during a school day, according The protests have largely involved students demanding
to a study of 203 children by Common Sense Media, a non- protection for Palestinian civilians suffering and dying un-
profit group based in San Francisco. Teachers complain der Israeli military bombardment in Gaza. Parents can be
that pupils watch YouTube and use other apps in class. found on both sides of that divide – some complaining that
Phones can be instruments of bullying, and pupils have college presidents have not done enough to prevent class-
been secretly videographed while using toilets or undress- room disruption, and others arguing that police power and
ing in locker rooms. These days, the notorious schoolyard institutional sanctions have been unfairly wielded against
fight can be organised by phone. non-violent demonstrators.
It is also clear that mobile phones can undermine learn- From a legal perspective, the parents of student pro-
ing. Several studies have found that their use decreases testers who were arrested or suspended appear to have the
concentration in school, and the phones don’t only affect stronger position, says Robert Kleinfeldt, a Florida lawyer
the user. “There’s a second-hand-smoke effect,” says Sabine who handles First Amendment (freedom of speech) cases.
Polak, a founder of the Phone-Free Schools Movement, an- The argument in such cases, says Kleinfeldt, is that the
other advocacy group. college or university broke its contract with its students by
New state laws seek to enforce phone-free classrooms unfairly denying them the experience they purchased with
while keeping pupils and parents connected. Florida’s gov- their tuition fees. “Because you have a right to be there –
ernor, Ron DeSantis, signed a law last year that bans the you’ve paid to be there,” he says.
use of mobile phones by pupils in class, and a similar law in But from a sheer power perspective, parents who dis-
Indiana is due to go into effect this month. Other states are like the student protests appear to have the upper hand,
considering bills along the same lines. These moves are dis- says Mimi Doe, a college admissions adviser who counsels
tinct from the more ubiquitous push for legislation aimed wealthy families in the US and abroad. Ms Doe is chief ex-
at protecting children from social media (according to the ecutive and a co-founder of Top Tier Admissions, a service
National Conference of State Legislatures, 30 states and so exclusive that she describes working with parents who
Puerto Rico are debating laws designed to protect children can express their displeasure by cutting donations to the
on the internet). likes of the University of Pennsylvania or by “stepping off
the board at Harvard”.
Emerging parents power tier consists of parents who are alarmed by the chaos sur-
And overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, this moneyed
S US CAMPUS CONFRONTATIONS EVAPORATE rounding student protest encampments seen in recent
with the summer break, a key but mostly behind- weeks across dozens of US campuses, and will not allow
Athe-scenes constituency — parents of students — is their children to attend such institutions. “They are all dis-
flexing its power in ways that could be critical in shaping mayed by this,” another elite-oriented college admissions
the long-term effects and future course of free speech up- adviser, Brian Taylor, managing partner of Ivy Coach, says
risings on campuses. Many US parents — especially those of the parents he advises.
with substantial financial and political clout — have been The use of legal power by such parents in higher edu-
limiting or even dictating their children’s college acceptance cation seems to be a natural evolution of what has been
decisions based on their own protest-related perspectives. happening at the school level in the US, where parents of
Some have begun filing lawsuits against institutions over financial means increasingly find they can overpower local
their responses to the protests. school officials. Doe says she has been an admissions ad-

58 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2024