Elementary Schools Should Ban Not Only Phones from Classrooms But Also Computer Devices (Harvey Pressman and Larry Cuban)*

Harvey Pressman is President of the Central Coast Children’s Foundation. He has been Technology Editor of Exceptional Parent Magazine, a board member, of the Alliance for Technology Access, an Education and History Professor, and former Peace Corps official. He has written many books and articles about educational technology and the education and employment of people with disabilities and has directed demonstration programs in these areas. Larry Cuban is Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University and has been a public high school social studies teacher and Superintendent of Arlington County (VA) public schools. For more than a century, American public school leaders have promised that the next new technology—filmstrips, radio, television, desktop computers, laptops, tablets—would finally “transform” teaching and learning. One of us has shown, in painstaking historical detail, that these promises have been made during every technological wave since the early 20th century,…