But don’t bring it to school and use it in class! A teacher may confiscate this under the existing system. And of course parents can pick up the confiscated device.

I agree that schools don’t provide enough challenge to students, so a student could be using the device to actually learn without an alternative, thus confiscating it would be wrong. But I think that would be rare, because I believe most schools today have Chromebooks which can access more than a lifetime’s worth of online resources in any subject, so the student can save whatever they need a thinkpad for at home. And it should be solved by giving those students Chromebooks, not letting other students use their phones during class (if a school confiscates phones but allow thinkpads I think that would also work well enough).