Schools should gauge what ed-tech tools were effective and replace what are not with traditional pen-to-paper teaching methods, policy experts said.
Ahead of the approaching academic year, several states are scaling back ubiquitous digital learning in public schools.
In Iowa, a 60-minute limit on screen-based instruction for elementary school students takes effect for the 2027–2028 school year. District leaders have all of this year to develop a plan before the measure is enforced.
Utah’s legislation goes even further and may eventually prohibit schools from providing laptops to every student in grades K-6 while allowing parents of students in higher grades to opt out of school-issued devices.
State legislature websites indicate that similar laws were passed in Tennessee and Alabama earlier this year, requiring individual districts to develop and later enforce regulations for elementary school children, though a 60-minute time limit won’t necessarily become the standard.
The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education decided on its own to implement limits across all grades and immediately ban YouTube in schools.
The Maine legislature tasked a policy research institute to study the harms of excessive screen-based learning and provide recommendations for alternatives.
Virginia’s new law requires classroom instruction on screentime addiction.
Vermont will now require districts to vet ed-tech tools and do more to safeguard student privacy.
Parent organizations and various groups concerned with digital classroom disruptions hope these ideas catch on across the nation in the months ahead, just as bell-to-bell phone bans did last year.
“Technology didn’t provide all the benefits they thought it would. It didn’t improve student outcomes,” Kim Whitman, co-lead of the Distraction-Free Schools Policy Project, told The Epoch Times.
“Nothing beats the actual teacher-student interaction.”
Whitman’s group and several others advocated getting phones out of classrooms before most states went on to pass related legislation. About half the states and Washington, D.C., mandate bell-to-bell smartphone bans in public schools.
“We saw phone-free schools as the first step,” she said, adding that in an era when professionals fear eventually being replaced by artificial intelligence, teachers might favor curbing technology in the name of job security.
Distraction-Free Schools provided model legislation to several states and individual districts across the nation. It also tracks districts that have taken steps to remove some ed-tech products.
