Editor’s note: This essay is an entry in Fordham’s 2026 Wonkathon, which asked contributors to answer this question: “What rules should govern the uses of digital technology in schools—and who should set them?” Learn more.
The rules around digital technology in schools should consist of universal simple guardrails that can then be tailored by local communities to fit their needs. We live in a world with rapidly advancing digital technology and polarized views on its moral and functional uses. However, our country is also diverse. Students and communities have different needs. Digital technology policy should reflect these needs and be built on three simple pillars—no screens in pre-K through 6th, difficult to change policy, and difficult to buy ed tech—on which local communities can add on to meet their individual needs.
My view on technology policy in schools has been shaped by experiencing two of these vastly different communities with vastly different needs. In the last year, I have gone from working at a small, alternative charter school in a low-income neighborhood of one state to a traditional comprehensive high school in an affluent neighborhood of another. When I moved, I had anticipated similar struggles around digital technology as the messaging about these in-school conflicts was so monolithic and suffusing. My reality was vastly different.
At the charter school in a low-income neighborhood, my colleagues and I were frustrated and concerned with phones—we just have to lock them up and all our concerns with motivation and social-emotional health will be cured!—and students using AI to cheat (poorly) on assignments. The school had found a solution to phones—we did lock them up—but were still floundering on the AI front. Regarding computer screen-time concerns, each classroom had a computer cart that was locked unless students needed the computers for the in-class activity.
At the traditional high school in an affluent neighborhood, students put their phones in pouches at the beginning of class and have individual computers in their backpacks. For the most part, this system works. I rarely have students sneak their phones to use in class, and students mostly use their computers for in-class work, or the occasional daily Wordle.
The technology needs of these two environments are vastly different. Before the charter school locked up phones, I could have danced on a table and students would have been too fixated on their phones to even film it. At the same time, students struggled with some basic computer navigation skills such as how to create a slideshow and may have benefited from more time to practice digital literacy skills. At the traditional high school, students are more prepared to live without their phones for a class, and have decent digital literacy skills, so the focus has been far less on technology and screens in the classroom. The same technology policy would not serve both student populations.
The differences in these two schools reflect the broader socioeconomic achievement gap in education. This gap needs to be addressed, but it will not be fixed by treating everyone the same. Rather, communities themselves should decide the needs of their students. Instead, three pillars should exist in education technology policy such that everyone is starting from the same place.
First, screens as replacements for teachers or ways to placate pre-K–6 students should not be allowed. So much social and brain development occurs during these ages that is short-cut by the presence of screens. Therefore, a universal technology policy should exist that students pre-K–6 do not have individual screens. This means that districts should not buy individual iPads or laptops for pre-K–6 students and instead focus on building the foundational skills of a learner.
Second, technology policy should not be easy to change, modify, or shift. Too much of educational policy changes with the breeze or the current prevailing ideology. Some may argue that rapid response to change means that schools can better respond to the times and is necessary to producing citizens of the future. I think this is incorrect for two reasons. First, rapidly changing policies, especially in large institutions like schools, are usually ill-thought out and difficult to implement properly. Teaching is a craft, and everyone benefits when the policies and curriculum are evidence based, and then teachers are given the opportunity to hone their craft. Secondly, no one can predict the future. While the individual skills students need in the job market may shift, no one can exactly predict what those will be. However, the foundational skills of how to learn, how to critically think, and how to work with others will surely be necessary in the future, and those should be what schools focus on developing in their learners. We don’t need technology to teach those skills. Everything else is fluff that does not need to be changed on the latest whim.
Lastly, it should be difficult for schools and school districts to buy ed tech. Ed tech can be useful but, at the end of the day, comprises products sold by corporations trying to make money from the tax dollars funding schools. Very few are properly experimentally tested for educational gains, and even fewer are implemented with purpose and fidelity. Any teacher can describe a software their district is rolling out that they will never use. Instead, much of this technology aids putting more screens in front of students for ill-defined benefits. Therefore, it should be difficult to purchase ed tech.
The national conversation about digital technology in schools often assumes that every school is fighting the same battle. Mine weren’t. Upon these three pillars, local communities can build the digital technology policy that fits their needs and lasts through the ever-evolving technology and education landscapes.
