I mean, as a 90s-kid, we used to install video games and other entertainment gimmicks on our graphing calculators. That's when kids weren't coming to school with gameboys and walkmens, already.
I gave my high school teachers fits because I'd sit in the back of the class and read my dad's old fantasy paperbacks - Game of Thrones, LotR, Dragonriders of Pern. They'd be annoyed to see I wasn't grinding my way through "Crime and Punishment" or "Great Expectations", but reluctant to object given that I was technically reading books above my grade level.
Similarly, kids in math class fucking around with Sudoku puzzles or Rubix Cubes or other math-adjacent gimmicks tend to turn teachers sideways. Especially when they're getting middling grades on the actual material, but obviously smart enough to practice and improve.
Maybe things have improved since I left secondary school.
From my perspective, the three things that have fucked schools most over time have been
- Larger class sizes
- Teachers with less education / professional experience
- Shorter school days / school years and bigger gaps in continuous education caused by the need to start work sooner
Going back to the 1970s, professional academics have known that these are the hallmarks of a bad education system. But fixing all of them costs money. And if there's one thing a school district hates to do, its spending money to improve education.