Are Smartphones Tanking NAEP Scores? Harvard Dean Says Yes
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses a Harvard dean's argument that smartphones are driving declining NAEP scores, particularly for the lowest-performing students.
Key Takeaways
- Smartphones correlate with declining test scores - A Harvard dean links smartphone use to falling NAEP performance
- Lowest-performing students are hit hardest - The negative impact of smartphones disproportionately affects students who are already struggling
- This adds to the case for phone-free schools - Growing evidence from multiple sources supports removing smartphones from the school day
Transcript
In Education Week, Martin West of the Harvard Graduate School of Education argues that smartphones are one unproven but obvious and likely culprit in falling NAEP scores, especially for the lowest performing students.
And I'm seeing this argument from a lot of quarters, and I find it very compelling.
If you've seen Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, you've seen the evidence and you've seen his argument that smartphones are indeed to blame.
not only for falling test scores, but for rising anxiety and other mental health issues, and certainly for just a host of problems in and beyond schools.
What I think is interesting about West's article is that he cites some NAEP data that's broken down by performance decile.
And as you can see in graphs like this one, this is reading, but math is similar.
As you can see, the highest performing students are continuing to do well.
There have been some ups and downs, but the general trend is slightly upward for the highest performing students.
And of course, those would be the students who tend to be a little bit more affluent and who are maybe protected from some of the risks of excessive smartphone use.
But look at the red line at the bottom.
That line is definitely trending down, and it represents the lowest 10% of students in terms of academic performance.
The lowest performing students are doing worse.
And West argues, I think convincingly, that that is due to excessive smartphone usage.
And we'll continue talking about that issue here on this show.
and different perspectives on the problem of excessive technology use and what we can do to protect our children from it.
Certainly, we've discussed smartphone bans during the school day, and we've talked about reducing technology usage to just the things that it is actually good for, and not having students on devices all day during school so that they can socialize, so that they can learn the old-fashioned way and continue to derive benefit from their education.
I think we also need to think about the parenting side.
And of course, as educators, we have a limited ability to determine what goes on in students' homes and what they do with technology outside of school.
But I think the evidence is mounting that we need to take this seriously, that there is an undeniable impact of technology use on lots of measures of student well-being.