I'm not sure what argument there is for allowing all students unfettered access to their phones, but feel free to present one.
People panic in fires, trampling one another trying to get out. The danger is real, but so is the damage caused by the panic.
Here people are responding to real harms but we're often jumping to conclusions. Trying to act too fast. Thinking it is better to do something rather than nothing. But that's not always true. We see this happen with all sorts of complex problems we face these days. People care more about having an answer than they do a solution. This one is no different. We get bad answers like the above because people are rushing and not thinking about the consequences. But if things were as easy to solve as were wish they were then they'd already have been solved. The "easy" part only comes after a lot of hard work and really only from a high level
Learning to read or to do mathematics is like anything else, it takes practice. We know, intuitively from our own lives and observes virtually all humans, that humans perform better with less distractions. It would be hard to learn how to play the Tuba with me screaming behind you. It would be hard to learn chess with a movie playing in front of you.
Phones are distractions. Less phones = less distractions = better performance, smarter kids, more likelihood to graduate, higher average income.
