In New York City, teachers have two more weeks to prepare for the start of school—and no access to the educational technology software they typically use to teach. City officials have issued a tech freeze while they deliberate over how artificial intelligence (AI) will be allowed in classrooms, amid public pressure to place a two-year moratorium on the technology.
Across the country, parents, teachers, school districts and state legislatures are currently grappling with similar questions revolving around how much technology should be allowed in the classroom. Just this week, as part of a massive settlement, Meta agreed to institute “school mode” so that kids can’t access Instagram during school hours. Most states now ban student cell phone use in schools, and a broader movement to limit educational screen use is gaining momentum. In March Utah and Alabama became the first states to limit the use of screens in classrooms.
Educational technology companies claim their apps and tools can make learning fun and boost student achievement. Schools also want to prepare students for a future where technology is ubiquitous. But many parents and educators see screens as an expensive distraction providing little additional benefit over analog learning with pencils and paper. And while the financial and educational stakes of these debates are high, the scientific research on the subject is highly nuanced: the effectiveness of these platforms can vary widely, researchers have found. Broadly speaking, digital tools that merely require students to drill new skills don’t promote learning, whereas platforms that are interactive and creatively engaging and provide real-time feedback show benefits.
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Tech in schools “is like a lightning rod,” says Christopher Saldaña, a K–12 education policy researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “In some ways, the backlash is a long time coming because we’ve had all these claims about what education technology can do that haven’t always panned out.”
The educational technology (or “ed tech”) industry generated $48 billion in revenue in 2024 and is projected to grow to $90 billion by 2030. The U.S. has some 13,000 public school districts but no central authority that vets marketing claims and provides guidance on which platforms schools should adopt, Saldaña explains.
Individual districts “don’t have the money to be able to vet any of these claims or verify them themselves,” he adds. “They’re often at the mercy of whatever vendors are telling them.”
Data privacy has also emerged as a key concern among grassroots parent groups advocating for screen-free schools. A Utah State Board of Education investigation surveyed educational software with data privacy agreements and found that 61 percent shared student data with third parties and 36 percent shared data with advertisers.
Under Alabama’s new rules, the state’s Department of Education will be required to institute limits on screen time in early childhood education. Utah’s new law bans screens in classrooms for K–3 students, except for computer science lessons and testing. It also bans sending devices home with K–3 students. The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the country, passed a resolution limiting screen use in classrooms in April.
Still, those rules are the exception. Most school districts are forging ahead with technology in classrooms. In a survey of teachers and school leaders conducted this year by the EdWeek Research Center, 74 percent of respondents said that their schools haven’t reduced their investment in education technology as a result of parent pushback and have no plans to do so in the near future. Teachers reported an overall positive effect of educational technology on students’ engagement in learning and mastery of skills but an overall negative effect on their social-emotional skills, overall well-being and behavior in the classroom.
Though digital learning tools are still widely used, bans on noneducational tech in school are now commonplace. At least 39 states and Washington, D.C., have prohibited cell phone use in public schools. Some of these laws only ban devices in class, while others ban them for the entire school day, including lunch and recess. These measures have become increasingly popular among the general public; a Pew survey conducted this spring found that support has risen across all age groups of U.S. adults since 2024.
Research on the impact of these phone bans is mixed. A study of schools that used lockable phone pouches from the company Yondr found that disciplinary incidents rose and student well-being fell in the first year of the phone ban. But in the ensuing years, disciplinary incident rates reduced and student well-being increased. There was no meaningful effect on test scores or attendance throughout the study period, however.
“Bans are just a starting line. They are never a whole comprehensive solution,” says Larz May, founder of #HalftheStory, a digital wellness nonprofit focused on teens. “What we’ve seen on the ground is that alongside phone bans, there are other cuts and issues that are impacting [kids]”—such as funding cuts to art programs and extracurriculars.
Phone ban policies restrict how teens can interact without providing further resources for connection and flourishing, May says. “What we’re hearing is, ‘You’re taking these things away, but what else do you have to offer?’”
Students’ main concerns around technology in schools now revolve around AI, May says. Research conducted by the College Board in 2025 found that high school students are “on the fence” about the risks and benefits of AI in their schooling, even as 84 percent reported using it to help with schoolwork. The study also found that one in five high schools allow generative AI but have no formal policy on what kind of use is acceptable.
The uncertainty is breeding anxiety among students, May reports. “One kid told me … that he actually videos himself while he’s doing his homework, just in case he gets accused of using AI,” she says. “Kids are going to extreme measures out of fear.”
Meanwhile, ed tech platforms are integrating AI further into their products, says Silvia Noguerón-Liu, a literacy studies researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. While she stresses that the educational technology platforms used in classrooms are typically well-vetted by districts, the offerings of ed tech companies are expanding and are often marketed as time-saving measures to teachers.
“The last ed tech conference I attended had the big names [in ed tech], and they all had an AI exploration room that felt a little bit dystopian,” Noguerón-Liu says. “Now where this gets very, very problematic is when you rely on it for content,” she says, because charts, information and lesson plans created with AI can often be inaccurate.
And whether technology in a classroom is helping or hurting depends a lot on the teacher, experts say. Educators need training and resources to use technology effectively, and they don’t always get it. “In my mind, teachers’ knowledge and teachers’ actions,” Noguerón-Liu says, “that’s the most impactful component.”