AS someone who was a teacher at A-level (age 16-18) in the UK for 17 years until last year.... I think you may be right in the best case scenario, but my experience is that the number of pupils who use smartphones (or the wider internet) as such is vanishingly small. Most people don't have the mental discipline to use it for the amazing academic tool it could be, and the bright, shiny things of social media etc fritter away their attention. I don't think the last argument ('they'll talk anyway') holds much water - it's possible for pupils to look as if they are working but are actually on a phone; other forms of interaction are much more easily detected (two or more kids talking, etc).

I was made redundant from both my (part time) teaching jobs around this time last year (through no fault of my own or performance, I hasten to add!) and I have ZERO intention of ever going back - my (anecdotal, of course) experience of the education landcape and students' interest and behaviour (which I feel is significantly due to the attention-leeching effects of their constant exposure to smartphones) led the last 3/4 years to be a horrible experience that I wouldn't repeat if they paid me double what I was previously earning. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I am greatly concerned about the effect that such technology (and unmonitored use most of the time) is going to have on those who have been exposed to it since a very early age (who will be coming through the education system in the next 10 years or so).

So the smart ones have to suffer for the students that dont want to learn; so lets just force them to not use tools to learn more efficiently. Hammer the nail that sticks out. We shall all be equally ignorant. Viva el socialismo!

Is it really because of political agenda though, or rather an issue of scale?

From a scale perspective you have basically 2 choices.

1) Treat kids like adults, let them do whatever so long as it doesn't impact others around them, and if they flunk, so be it.

2) Assume kids don't know best and impose rules you can enforce at scale, with the end goal hopefully being they learn the subject.

Either option gets you boatloads of complaints and anecdotes, depending on your perspective.

If you don't want efficient but merciless scaling (perhaps it's not working?), then we should explore another (new?) approach that lives within or expands upon (good luck!) the economic constraints. Ultimately we settle on something that seems "good enough", meeting as much of 1) and 2) without going bankrupt.

Phones weren't allowed in my high school 10 years ago. Everyone still used them. They were huge distractions to students and also to teachers since they spent a lot of time policing. Teachers were not allowed to give you an F for having it, they would just take it and give you in-school suspension. Talking in class was much easier for a teacher to police than being on your phone. We got very good at hiding it. I held my phone by using the back of my knee, bending my leg to pinch the phone in place, then typing a text or Google search until I needed to look.

No one was using them for educational purposes.

This sounds like a persuasive essay just lists facts without researching the benefit/detriment of each.

Taking a picture of a whiteboard is not the same as writing/typing notes.. and no, teacher's don't have the luxury of failing kids due to ignoring phone rules (unfortunately).

there are few things as useless as taking a picture of the whiteboard

Your mileage may vary. Sometimes I like to write everything down, number by number, symbol by symbol, but oftentimes I prefer to talk to the teacher about what he's writing to understand it better but keep it for future reference.

Writing down aids memory, but not understanding in my experience.

In complex topics like discrete mathematics it's been a lifesaver to me.

Something tells me that less than 1 percent use the phone like that. Most of them would text, watching various social media crap with nothing related to the class. To use them effectively the teacher should be able to put all the phones in a "class" mode with restricted apps and content.

In European schools, students are generally not graded by the teacher durectly, but through tests (though the teachers produce reports to parents). Thus, the option for the teacher to dole out an F to phone (ab)users is not available.

Thankfully.

Personally I think the American system whereby your grades are dictated by your teacher is quite vulnerable to all kinds of issues, but maybe I misunderstand that system.

I live in Europe. In Poland specifically.

I do not mean a final note, just a standard one. Like you may get for a test or homework.

None of that is relevant to active classroom learning when the teacher needs the class's attention (except the pictures, but I agree with peer posts about that). Those are fine during study & homework, though.