After years of classrooms adopting more tech, a small but growing number of Houston-area private and charter schools are dialing back screens.
The pandemic saw many students move to online instruction, and afterward schools began to quickly adopt technology, allowing students to use Chromebooks for worksheets, homework and tests. In the 2021 school year, 96% of public schools reported providing digital devices to students who needed them.
Now, some schools are encouraging paper-and-pen learning and limiting devices to help students learn better and develop social skills amid national and statewide concerns about screen time.
“The way that we’ve looked at technology is tied right into that we want these girls to have the greatest degree of freedom possible,” said Margaret Cronin, director of admissions and communications at the Magnolia School. “We feel like that in these early years, educating them without that distraction, in a lot of ways really will lead to that greater degree of freedom.”
Some public school districts have also scaled back screen time for students. At Los Angeles Unified School District, board members voted in April to limit screen time and transition away from one-to-one device policies. In Richardson ISD near Dallas, district leaders are introducing new rules that put a cap on how long students can use devices in class.
[…]
Many educators and parents pushing for less screen time say the shift is backed by a growing body of research on how students learn.
Meredith Austin, associate director at Rice University’s Center for Education, said studies have shown that heavy screen use in classrooms is linked to weaker academic outcomes.
A 2023 study analyzing National Assessment of Educational Progress data found that the more time students spent on digital devices in English class, the lower their reading comprehension scores.
Still, Austin said other factors have contributed to student learning declines over the past few years as well, including social media, reading instruction, COVID shutdowns and teacher shortages. It’s unclear to what extent screens have affected recent learning outcomes, especially because some research shows technology paired with good teaching instruction can benefit students.
Jill Filipovic has been on this bandwagon, and there’s certainly a lot of research at this time to back up that position. I agree with Prof. Austin that it’s not completely “tech” versus “not tech” – kids do need to learn about this stuff, after all – but I’m all in favor of taking several steps back, thoroughly reviewing the research, and cordially inviting a whole bunch of school tech vendors to go jump in the lake. Meanwhile, here in HISD, Mike Miles is converting a bunch of schools into AI-focused “Future 2” schools. If I still had kids in HISD, I would move heaven and earth to ensure they were not enrolled in any of those schools. I will very much take the bet that after a few years, when there’s been some quality research done on the usage of AI in school curricula, any successes there will be the exception. Until then, he’s giving parents here another reason to go elsewhere.