Extra time to Text in School?!?!?!?

So today I heard that there is a thought going through a school district that they want to expand the amount of time between class periods so that students have time to text one another. They have 3 minutes to get from one class to another right now, but they want to expand that to 5-7 minutes and cut down on the amount of time that the students are physically in the classroom. How crazy is this? I think that it makes no sense for them to do this. Their reasoning behind this thought is because they believe that students are not entirely focused in the classroom because they are more worried about texting and what their friends are doing then they are to pay attention in the classroom. I believe that if they make the decision to expand the amount of time between classes and cut down on the amount of time that the students are actually in class will make many people angry. For one, the tax payers will be angry that their money is going to pay for students to spend time texting as opposed to learning. I believe that they are also showing the students that it is okay to text while in school. When I was in High School the policy was that cell phones were not allowed in the classroom, they were to be left in your lockers and if you were caught with them then they would be confiscated for the rest of the school day. Where did that rule go? Is it still there? And if so, why have the teachers and administration become so lax on the consequences? I think that it would be a poor decision to expand the time between classes to text, if the students can't focus for 40 minutes a class then how are they going to be able to focus in a "real world" job? Its not like you can be standing at a cash register texting your friends while working. You can't as a teacher have your cell phone out and text while teaching. Over all I think that cell phones should be kept in their lockers and/or I think that they should make it a rule they stay in their cars or once they enter the school they are to drop the cell phones off in the office and they can pick them up at the end of the school day. I think this would cut down on the students so called "necessity" to text. What is your opinion on this? Do you think that it makes sense to lengthen the amount of time between classes and decline the amount of time actually in the classroom, just so the students can text one another?