Figlio and Umut Özek, a senior economist at RAND Corp., a research organization, set out to address that gap. Their study, released Monday as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, analyzes data from a large, county-level urban school district in Florida, which was the first state to adopt a cell phone ban.
The study found modest improvements in test scores in the second year of the ban, after an increase in suspensions in the first year.