No Cell Phones at School? Better See the Cell Phone Storage Man

For teenagers in New York City, like most places in America, cell phones have become a regular part of daily life. A 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that 78 percent of U.S. kids aged 12 to 17 now have a cell phone, and almost half (47 percent) of those own smartphones. Over the last couple decades, many school districts across the country have responded to this sea change by banning phones from classrooms, or from campus entirely.

In New York, the Department of Education issued a ban in 2005 that forbids high school students from bringing cell phones into public schools. Part of a battery of Bloombergian initiatives that struck at what many considered parental issues (the failed large-soda ban, the trans fat ban), the cell phone ban was couched in concerns for cheating, inappropriate or lewd texting, and preventing general distraction among New York's students.