In “Straight Talk with Rick and Jal,” Harvard University’s Jal Mehta and I examine the reforms and enthusiasms that permeate education. In a field full of buzzwords, our goal is simple: Tell the truth, in plain English, about what’s being proposed and what it means for students, teachers, and parents. We may be wrong and we will frequently disagree, but we’ll try to be candid and ensure that you don’t need a Ph.D. in eduspeak to understand us. Today’s topic is the tech backlash and what it means for education.
—Rick

Jal: Rick, I sense a heartening trend in the “education reform” conversation: More and more folks are starting to ask the right questions about ed tech.

Robin Lake, the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, recently wrote an article asking people to consider what makes us distinctively human. Our friend Michael Goldstein is starting a research center focused on how to get kids off their phones. And 22 states have passed phone bans.

In short, we are starting to ask: What do we want for our young people? Will technology help or hinder their development? And if technology proves harmful, how do we respond?

I think there are a number of factors prompting this reckoning—the most obvious being fear of what AI means for the future, particularly entry-level jobs. Then there’s the fact that we just conducted a massive experiment with unregulated social media. Let’s hope that with AI we apply some of the lessons that it took us 15 years to learn about social media—and have our eyes wide open from the start.

What do you think?

Rick: Yep, the “techlash” is in full flower, with red and blue states alike embracing phone bans. Heck, even AFT President Randi Weingarten and Moms for Liberty have found common cause teaming up against Big Tech. The blowback is clumsy and mostly unconcerned with fine distinctions, but that’s understandable. This is what happens when tech vendors and pie-eyed district leaders spend years dismissing skeptics while hyping “innovation.” Parents and policymakers are responding to the tech-fueled anomie suffusing their kids’ schools with the crude tools available to them—bans and restrictions. None of this is particularly well-designed, of course. It’s the pendulum swinging back on a tech sector that talked big and underdelivered. For the tech boosters and their “reform-minded” cheerleaders, the bill has come due.

But it’s not just about devices. We’ve gradually awakened to the fact that it was a huge mistake to treat the fabric of childhood as a given. Bizarrely, given that we’ve discussed the rise of “bowling alone” since last century, it long seemed that no one in education was paying attention to the broader effects of screen saturation on kids. Parents bought iPhones for 10-year-olds. Influential voices urged schools to adopt “one-to-one” devices. A parade of new “tech solutions” was hailed (and quietly ditched). What’s remarkable is how little pushback this all encountered.

I mean, why did we imagine that students spending hours on Chromebooks wouldn’t corrode the human dimension of schooling? Or that digital texts wouldn’t alter reading habits? Or that phones wouldn’t change how kids socialize? We’ve watched tech steadily thin out the thick interpersonal dynamics that once characterized bus rides, cafeterias, and classrooms.

In retrospect, this all seems entirely predictable. So why didn’t we anticipate it? How much can these shifts be unwound? And how reasonable is it to think we’ll do better when it comes to AI?

Jal: A big part of the problem is that in the U.S., we tend to swing wildly between extremes. One week, AI will reinvent schools; the next, it should be banned as a developmental hazard. And it’s not just tech: We went from DEI being in every school document to scrubbing websites of any mention of equity. We too often lack the perspective or wisdom that comes from careful reflection.

In terms of whether the downsides of tech can be reversed, the first step is realizing you have a problem. On that count, it seems like the world is gradually realizing that giving every young person a highly addictive device to carry 24/7 may not be such a good idea. Especially when you realize that a big part of growing up is having in-person experiences. I hope that, over the next decade, we’ll see experimentation with different ways of addressing this problem.

One effort that I particularly like is Kidsburgh, a collaboration among organizations in Pittsburgh with the goal of having an after-school activity available for every child. I could see many different cities creating their own Kidsburghs.

Rick: Kidsburgh. I like that. You’re right that this kind of Tocquevillian response is critical. The challenge is to revivify those atrophied habits and norms. But it’s hard.

And I’m concerned that the tech boosters don’t really get the problem. Their concessions seem perfunctory. I’ve heard a lot of, “We need to be sure that we have evidence of efficacy, that devices are used in moderation, and that they don’t foster passive classrooms.” That’s better than the alternative, I guess.

But what were we doing for the past quarter century? I mean, only now—after billions spent on millions of devices and thousands of applications—has it occurred to anyone that schools should demand evidence of efficacy or that devices be used in moderation?!

Meanwhile, I’m constantly surprised at how little even savvy vendors seem to have taken concerns about runaway tech to heart. When I ask them about social media, phones, and parental concerns, they wrinkle their brow and explain, as if I’m an especially slow child, “But these are out-of-school issues.” First off, I’m not convinced that’s a helpful distinction. Learning-management systems, school-issued devices, and digital tutors bleed into the after-school hours. Secondly, school culture can have a big impact on how kids use social media after school or whether they wind up gambling during the school day.

When Bob Putnam wrote Bowling Alone, he spoke about how wearing a Walkman fostered a culture of isolation. Individuals might enjoy bowling that way in the moment, but it eroded the sport’s communitarian dimension. That kind of trade-off is a whole lot more pressing when it concerns schooling. I’ve yet to see evidence that those championing tech are ready to grapple with any of this. Until they are, I don’t think their promise to finally care about results will matter all that much.