The debate over technology in America’s schools and classrooms has never been louder—or more confused. In the span of a single school board meeting, one can hear parents demanding the elimination of cell phones and other digital devices, administrators defending access to educational technology as a matter of equity, and teachers saying they just want clear guidance on what they’re supposed to do on Monday morning.
All sides are responding to two uncomfortable truths. First, the pace of change is staggering. The technology available in classrooms today would have been unrecognizable five years ago, and what’s coming will make today’s tools obsolete.
Second, student outcomes remain stubbornly below pre-pandemic levels. Nationally, 34% of eighth graders scored below basic in reading in 2024—the worst result in 32 years of testing.
With 77 years of combined experience leading public education systems across the country, we’ve seen this debate play out in every form. What we keep coming back to is a fourth-grade classroom one of us visited not long ago—a scene that could have unfolded anywhere in the United States.
A few students who were behind on basic math facts had spent months feeling a step behind during whole-class math lessons. Recognizing this, their teacher introduced a short digital pre-teaching activity that helped them strengthen the foundational skills they needed for the day’s lesson.
Soon, they were participating more fully and showing greater mathematical success. The content hadn’t changed. The expectations hadn’t changed. But the barrier had.
Those students didn’t need fewer screens. They needed the right one.
That’s the distinction our policies keep missing—the difference between technology that opens doors and technology that wastes time. The real question isn’t how much technology belongs in the classroom. It’s whether what’s on the screen is making the classroom better or replacing it.
Removing a tool that brings learning to life
Here’s what we know. Social media and passive screen time are associated with the worst academic outcomes—full stop. However, purposeful technology, designed around clear learning goals, drives better outcomes.
We have a lot to learn about how AI helps and hinders student learning, but we can already see that when AI is used behind the scenes to support teachers—handling administrative tasks, surfacing insights, and giving teachers more time to teach—the results are powerful.
But too often, our policy conversation reaches for the bluntest instrument available—a device ban, a time limit, a blanket restriction. These actions feel decisive. They aren’t.
Removing technology doesn’t make the curriculum more engaging. It simply removes one of the tools that brings learning to life—trading a short-term sense of control for our students’ long-term readiness.
What students need today is what they have always needed: a great teacher and a classroom of peers where, together, they can do something none of them could do alone. Technology earns its place when it makes that possible. It fails when it doesn’t.
That means shifting from rules solely about quantity to standards of quality. Teachers should have access to tools that make them more responsive to their students, more effective in their instruction, and less burdened by administrative work.
Student screen time should be used intentionally and reserved for moments that expand hard work and learning, rather than replace them. Student data and privacy must be protected without exception.
Most importantly, these decisions should be shaped by the people closest to the classroom—teachers and principals—with input from parents who know their children best, not handed down from those furthest from it.
Is technology making students more curious?
Not too long ago, one of us visited a middle school classroom. The teacher spent the first half of the period with laptops closed—instruction, discussion, and students working on paper. Then, at exactly the right moment, she opened a digital math tool that allowed students to interact with a difficult problem, and for her to check for understanding.
In 30 seconds, she could see who grasped the problem, who was close, and who needed a different approach. In the next 10 minutes, she made three instructional decisions that would have been impossible otherwise.
Technology didn’t replace her judgment; it sharpened it.
We have spent our careers engaging with educators and students in classrooms across the country. We’ve seen what happens when policy gets ahead of practice, and when it falls behind. What we know is this: students don’t have time for the wrong debate.
The next time any of us finds ourselves in a school board meeting, let’s walk in with a better question—not whether technology belongs in our schools, but how to ensure that the technology schools use is making teachers more effective and students more curious, motivated, and prepared.
That’s what good policy looks like. And that’s what our students deserve.
