OPINION: Walking away from education technology isn’t the answer to the latest backlash

In too many classrooms in America, the scene is the same: children staring at tablets, headphones on, silent. Some are working through reading programs. Some have already finished and found their way to something else entirely. The teacher circulates. 

The education technology industry calls this personalized learning. Somewhere, a dashboard is registering all this as engagement. 

Nobody in any of those classrooms would agree. I know because I’ve spent a decade navigating this industry from the inside, building some of the technology that teachers, students and soon my own sons will use. 

I’ve come to a conclusion that may surprise you: Much of the backlash against ed tech is completely justified. But it misses the broader point. 

Parents are right to question whether the screens in their children’s classrooms are making them better learners. Politicians are right to demand that the industry prove it. And the nation’s largest teacher union is right to call for caution regarding screen time and student-facing AI in elementary schools. 

Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

These are not fringe positions. They are honest reckonings with what educators and parents have been asking the industry to confront for years. Growing alarms about the impact of screens on children’s mental health, attention spans and academic outcomes have turned a quiet concern into a political movement.

But when the responses are blanket bans and broad restrictions that make no distinction between distraction and instruction, we’re not solving a problem — we’re avoiding it.

Walking away from technology entirely isn’t protection. It’s abdication. The students in those classrooms today are inheriting a world that runs digitally and requires digital fluency.

A middle schooler who can’t evaluate an online source or the ethics of a new kind of technology isn’t a student we’ve protected. She’s a student we’ve left behind. 

The answer to bad ed tech isn’t no ed tech. It’s higher standards, better tools and a philosophy that keeps teachers at the center. 

That philosophy draws a clear line. Teachers should have wide 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 instruction accordingly. But anything a student interacts with directly must clear a higher bar: It has to make the subject matter come alive in ways that simply cannot happen in print or via hands-on learning. 

As a chief product officer, 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 add real value, we choose print. But sometimes print cannot do the job. 

Digital tools can help students visualize and interact with math as it appears in the world, receive immediate feedback that deepens understanding and run a science 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 give students authentic choices that build self-determination. From pre-K through second grade, that standard must be even higher because foundational skills are built through human interaction, not screen time.

Done right, the result sounds nothing like the opening sentences of this piece — it’s louder, messier and more alive. With purposeful technology, a teacher can see in real time that 20 of her 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. 

That kind of immediate feedback isn’t just good teaching. Research shows that students who receive immediate digital feedback on their work can learn significantly more than those using traditional methods.

AI is no different from other technology needing to earn its place — and no exception. The debate treats it as either a silver bullet or an existential threat. Both are wrong, yet the evidence on current AI use clearly cuts in one direction: High schoolers who studied with a general-purpose AI chatbot scored 17 percent worse on their exams.

A tool that does the thinking for students isn’t a tutor. It’s a shortcut. 

Related: Teachers save time with AI. Their students may pay the price

That’s why, until we know more, I’m focused on using AI not so much with students but to help teachers with their immensely challenging jobs: supporting teachers in processing the large amount of work a class of 25 to 35 students produces; surfacing patterns before they become permanent gaps; and handling the administrative weight that pulls teachers away from teaching. 

Take a math lesson in which 35 students each submit a different solution. AI can read every response, identify answers that would drive a productive math discussion and hand the teacher the information to lead a constructive conversation with students in seconds. 

AI handles the analysis. The teacher handles the room. The students get a lesson built around what they actually need. 

To the legislators drafting anti-tech bills and the parents and caregivers pushing for change: You are right to push. But push toward a better standard — 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. 

Those questions cut closer to the problem than any time limit ever could.

There are signs the debate is turning. More policymakers are starting to ask about quality, not just quantity. The students caught in this debate deserve better than a narrow conversation about screens. They deserve a more honest one about which tools deepen learning and which distract from it.

Alexandra Walsh is the chief product officer at Amplify, one of the country’s largest K-12 curriculum and assessment companies. She leads the strategic vision for the company’s comprehensive math, literacy and science product suites.

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

This story about ed tech was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.