Nearly all elementary students use devices in classrooms, teacher survey finds

A vast majority of elementary school teachers said in a survey that their students use laptops, tablets and other devices in class, according to a Walton Family Foundation and Gallup report released last week.

The survey collected responses in May 2026 from a nationally representative sample of over 2,000 K-12 public school teachers, reported K-12 Dive.  

About a quarter of elementary school teachers say their students use devices in all or most class periods for main lessons, and about 46% say devices are a distraction during instruction to some extent. About 61% say digital tools help students learn more effectively. 

“Teachers’ strongest preferences point toward investing in non-digital materials and stronger device filtering and monitoring, more so than broad screen-time restrictions,” the report said.

About two-thirds of teachers say they would support switching device-based classes to paper-based. A majority of teachers were also likely to say that student learning devices either do equal amounts of harm and good or do more harm than good. Fewer teachers were likely to say that devices do more good than harm. 

“Giving teachers more control over devices in their classroom — for example, through stronger monitoring and management — may be an effective approach,” the report said, as teachers with greater oversight on students’ technology use had more positive views on devices.  

Wealthier districts were also more likely to say that digital tools are a good fit for learning for students than those in high-poverty districts. The gap “may reflect differences in the tools schools can afford and how well they’re implemented,” the report said.

The findings follow as districts across the country and California have enacted restrictions on technology use, such as Los Angeles Unified School District’s cellphone and AI ban, and San Diego Unified’s removal of computer carts from transitional kindergarten classrooms.

The U.S. Department of Education, however, in an August letter, defended technology use in classrooms, suggesting that schools consider education technology as a distinct issue from students’ recreational use of screens when restricting use.

This story was originally published by EdSource.