In too many classrooms across the United States, the scene is the same: children staring at tablets, headphones on, silent. Some work through reading programs. Some have already finished and moved on to something else. The teacher moves around.
The edtech industry calls this personalized learning. Somewhere there is a dashboard recording all of this as engagement.
No one in any of these classes would agree. I know this because I spent a decade navigating this industry from the inside out, building some of the technologies that teachers, students, and soon my own sons will use.
I’ve come to a conclusion that might surprise you: Much of the backlash against educational technology is completely justified. But that misses the larger point.
Parents are right to wonder if screens in their children’s classrooms are making them better learners. Politicians are right to demand that industry prove it. And the nation’s largest teachers union is right to urge caution around screen time and student-facing AI in elementary schools.
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These are not marginal positions. These are honest reckonings with what educators and parents have been asking the industry to confront for years. Growing concerns about the impact of screens on children’s mental health, attention span and academic performance have transformed a quiet concern into a political movement.
But when the answers are blanket bans and blanket restrictions that make no distinction between distraction and instruction, we don’t solve a problem – we avoid it.
Walking away from technology completely is no protection. It is an abdication. Students who attend these classrooms today inherit a world that operates digitally and requires digital fluency.
A middle school student who cannot evaluate an online source or the ethics of a new type of technology is not a student we have protected. She’s a student we left behind.
The answer to bad educational technology is not no educational technology. It’s higher standards, better tools, and a philosophy that puts teachers at the center.
This philosophy draws a clear line. Teachers need broad access to tools that extend their reach, reduce their load, and give them a real-time picture of where each student is so they can adapt teaching accordingly. But anything a student directly interacts with must clear a higher bar: it must bring the subject to life in a way that simply cannot happen on paper or through hands-on learning.
As a product manager, I make evidence-based decisions about what belongs in print, what belongs in hands-on learning, and what belongs in digital form. When technology does not provide real added value, we choose print. But sometimes impression isn’t enough.
Digital tools can help students visualize and interact with mathematics as it appears in the world, receive immediate feedback that deepens their understanding, and run a scientific simulation that a static page simply cannot replicate.
High-quality student-facing technology should advance learning in ways that other formats cannot, strengthen rigorous classroom communities, and provide students with authentic choices that strengthen their self-determination. In kindergarten through second grade, this standard needs to be even higher, because foundational skills are built through human interaction, not screen time.
Done well, the result is nothing like the opening sentences of this piece – it is louder, messier and more alive. Using targeted technology, a teacher can see in real time that 20 of their 30 students solved a problem one way and 10 solved it differently. She can then ask each group to explain their thinking to the other, producing something better than anything a static lesson plan can offer.
This kind of immediate feedback is not only good teaching. Research shows that students who receive immediate digital feedback on their work can learn much more than those using traditional methods.
AI is no different than any other technology that needs to earn its place – and is no exception. The debate treats it as either a silver bullet or an existential threat. Both are wrong, but the evidence on current AI use clearly points in one direction: high school students who studied with a general-purpose AI chatbot. brand 17 percent worse on their exams.
A tool that makes students think is not a tutor. It’s a shortcut.
Related: Teachers save time with AI. Their students could pay the price
That’s why, until we know more, I’m focused on using AI not so much with students as to help teachers with their extremely difficult job: helping teachers process the large amount of work produced by a class of 25 to 35 students; surface patterns before they become permanent spaces; and manage the administrative burden that keeps teachers away from teaching.
Take a math class in which 35 students each submit a different solution. The AI can read each answer, identify answers that could lead to a productive math discussion, and provide the teacher with the information needed to have a constructive conversation with students in seconds.
AI handles the analysis. The teacher takes care of the room. Students receive a lesson built around what they actually need.
To the lawmakers who are writing anti-technology bills and the parents and guardians who are pushing for change: you are right to push. But work to set better standards: not how many minutes students spend on screens, but whether the tools on those screens are evidence-based, whether they serve teachers or replace them, and whether student data is treated as a trust rather than an asset.
These questions are closer to the problem than any time limit ever could.
There are signs that the debate is turning. More and more policy makers are starting to question quality, not just quantity. The students caught up in this debate deserve better than just a conversation about screens. They deserve more honest analysis about which tools deepen learning and which distract from it.
Alexandra Walsh is Director of Product at Amplify, one of the nation’s largest K-12 curriculum and assessment companies. She leads the strategic vision for the company’s comprehensive suites of math, literacy, and science products.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This educational technology story was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register with Hechinger weekly newsletter.
The article OPINION: Moving away from educational technology is not the answer to the latest backlash, which appeared first in the Hechinger Report.
