The failures of our K-12 educational establishment are no secret.

All over the country, schools pass and graduate students who cannot read and write at or near grade level. We meet college freshmen who don’t know their country’s founding principles or the three branches of government.

Behavioral and mental health problems hold our children back as schools fight with parents over what they should teach.

None of this is easy to solve, but one simple step could go a long way: manage the phones.

Every school should be, to whatever extent possible, a safe and regulated cellphone reprieve for our youths.

When cellphones nudged into the market, the 1995 movie “Clueless” amused audiences with a scene of two girls conversing on phones while walking together. The scene gets no chuckle today, as people communicate by phone while dining together.

“Research shows that cellphones are a major distraction in classrooms,” explains the website of the National Education Association.

The union reports widespread cellphone use in schools contributes to “struggles with student behavior and mental health.”

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Shocking. Before mobile phones, bullies had limited reach. Today, they can broadcast embarrassing pictures, rumors and other malice that destroys reputations, causes permanent emotional distress and elicits suicides.

As explained by Gazette reporter Debbie Kelley, schools throughout the Pikes Peak region have a variety of cellphone rules. Most public middle and high schools allow cellphones, but they must be silenced and used only during breaks.

Most middle schools in Colorado Springs School District 11 allow students to bring phones, but teachers must secure them in a place of their choosing.

High school students at Thomas MacLaren School in the Springs turn in their phones as they arrive and pick them up at the end of the day.

A new policy at Colorado Springs’ St. Mary’s High School forces students to keep phones off and in backpacks or lockers during the day.

Not all schools are the same and cannot operate under one-size-fits-all regulations.

Yet, it seems reasonable for schools to regulate student phones to the point they eliminate or mitigate related problems. If they are not, teachers, parents, school boards and administrators should address and frequently update in-school phone rules.

“We not only did it for academic focus but also for the mental health of students – the anxiety of being able to separate yourself from the phone,” said St. Mary’s Principal Robyn Cross.

Teachers, Cross said, believe the policy “makes all the difference in the world.”

The Diocese of Colorado Springs Superintendent Sheila Whalen cites research showing more children are becoming addicted to technology.

“So, we need to partner with the parents to help students have a healthier relationship with technology,” Whalen said.

Anyone over 40 remembers life without cellphones. Like every development in human history, cellphones have enhanced and diminished our lives. They free us from travel just as they leash us to the office and home. They assist humanity in good and evil and all that lies between.

Too many humans of all ages and every background spend their lives tapping and talking on phones, oblivious to life and the organic world around them. Schools should provide children with appropriate and safe reprieves from this millstone.

Control the phones and improve their chances to learn and succeed as adults – when they’ll surely be tethered to phones.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board