More schools are banning cell phones. The academic benefits haven’t materialized

School cell phone bans aren’t as new as you might think. While a growing number of states have adopted them over the past three years, the practice dates to 1989, when Maryland prohibited the devices (and pagers) in an attempt to limit in-school communication among students who may have been involved in illegal activities. By 2009, in fact, nine out of 10 schools had banned cell phones.