Talk about failing to see the forest for the trees. A news report by Houston’s KHOU TV Channel 11 on its website today has the headline “Cell phone fines mean big bucks for some Texas school districts.” The story concerns fines students must pay when they text or otherwise use cell phones in class, which is against school rules.

As the headline and the article’s content make clear, KHOU’s author considers the problem to be this: “Some schools are cashing in.” She goes on to question how the money collected when students break the rules and text in class is administered. Though there’s no evidence given of impropriety, the author’s conspiracy-theory attitude seems to be, “Those mean ol’ sneaky school districts!”

Of course, the real problem here with far broader implications and concerns is this: Too many of today’s students are disengaged from teachers, class, learning and their immediate environment because they are addicted to cell phones, texting and other avenues of needlessly incessant and exceedingly trivial communication.

These same students, when they drive a car or do a job for which others depend on them, are far more likely to continue such addictive behavior, thereby failing at their responsibilities and, in worst cases, killing themselves or someone else by being a distracted driver.

Fortunately, most readers of KHOU’s website who commented on the article were amazed that the writer took such a slant and dismayed that so many students willfully break the rules that are clearly set forth at the start of the school year. And after three decades as a professional journalist for major daily newspapers, I agree. THAT should have been KHOU’s story, and the station blew it.

Meanwhile, schools are trying to do a better job of teaching by forbidding the devices — and are fighting an uphill battle. Keep in mind, too, that besides being a distraction, a cell phone could be a means of cheating on tests or other in-class work which requires students to demonstrate how much they’ve learned, not how much they can dig up by furtively texting under their desk.

Bottom line: Texting has no place in classrooms, and the Texas Education Code is correct in allowing school districts to fine students for breaking cell phone rules that are clearly stated up front. So far, only Texas has taken such action.

Of course, parents and taxpayers also have a right to know how the collected fines are allocated, and school districts should be forthcoming in this matter. It should be in a responsible manner, naturally, and if it’s not, they should be held accountable for it.

But the far greater concern here — for KHOU website readers and surely for the citizenry at large — is the blatant disregard of the rules by so many students, so many times, that school districts do, in fact, amass thousands of dollars in $15 fines. That’s an epidemic of inattentiveness and “the rules don’t apply to me” attitudes — an epidemic which eventually will spread to other aspects of life, as when young people text while driving a car and end up killing themselves or someone else.

That said, many such students have one excuse: They learn bad behavior from their own parents, many of whom text or cell-talk themselves while driving, and even try calling or texting sons or daughters while they’re in class. And what’s the excuse? Even if it were an emergency, a school’s administrative office could be called, then quickly contact the student. Yet how many times is parent’s or student’s classtime call or text a true “must know now” emergency?

For more bad examples, parents talking and texting while driving in school zones has gotten so bad that some municipalities have had to pass laws to curb such distractions. Too many kids have been hurt — and even killed — due to distracted drivers in school zones.

BTW, to use text talk, the Texas Department of Public Safety reports that at least 13,000 car accidents in recent years have been caused by talking or texting distractions via cell phones. And those accidents have killed at least 126 Texas sons and daughters.

Now, what are you most concerned about: How quickly school districts allocate fines collected from students breaking rules, or how many students are more interested in texting than textbooks — or their own individual responsibility?

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