From ABC News: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — the signature defense policy and spending bill — will ban cellphones for K-12 students attending schools on military bases. The bipartisan provision, focused on improving learning outcomes for children of U.S. servicemembers, was sponsored by freshman Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind.
The NDAA, a $900 billion must-pass defense bill, takes a major step towards reducing distractions for tens of thousands of students, according to the REFOCUS DoDEA Act. The provision is co-led by Banks and his Armed Services committee colleague Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich. Their committee has federal jurisdiction over the schools on military bases.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Banks said the key provision has national security, recruitment, and retention implications.
“We invest in them [our troops], we train them, we pay them, and if they serve in the military for ten or 12 years and decide to get out because their kids are going to a crappy school, that’s a national security issue,” Banks told ABC News.
“It’s a retention issue,” he said. “We’ve got to do something to address it and improve it.”
Thomas Toch, the director of an education policy center at Georgetown University called FutureEd, said one of the “necessary steps” to improving education outcomes is cellphone bans.
We can’t retain troops if we fail their kids’ education.
Weak DoDEA schools hurt retention and national security.
Fixing DoDEA starts with banning cellphone distractions in the classroom. I’m proud to have secured this in the FY2026 NDAA.https://t.co/T3Y3Mo5HEV
— Senator Jim Banks (@SenatorBanks) December 19, 2025
Read more at ABC News
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