Ei-iE

We are in an era of massive disruption. Artificial intelligence is triggering seismic shifts in virtually every aspect of society.

Teachers are no strangers to disruption; we’re often the first responders to it. Time and again, teachers provide stability amid chaos, and the human connection at the heart of the student-teacher relationship, and we help our students navigate a changing world. But this turbulent moment requires a concerted national response to prepare our young people for life’s opportunities and challenges.

A strong foundation for students in a changing world

Today, I present a vision for America’s public schools to provide a strong foundation for our children in this changing world. It’s informed by listening to and learning from parents, educators, students, researchers, and business and community leaders, and by countless school visits here and abroad.

Whatever the future holds for students, they need:

• A broad base of foundational knowledge, starting with literacy and numeracy skills.
• Curriculum that is relevant, engaging and fosters curiosity, including subjects like the arts, athletics and civics.
• An emphasis on active learning through meaningful projects and opportunities to apply knowledge in ways that connect learning to real life.
• Safe and welcoming classrooms and campuses where young people feel seen, supported and ready to learn. That includes promoting well-being and protecting students from gun violence, immigration raids and bullying.

These basics equip students for the deeper learning and problem-solving that will be crucial throughout their lives. They help make students more confident and more engaged learners. It’s how we promote curiosity and critical thinking and ensure all our students have the agency and persistence they need to confront challenges.

I want to underscore why laying this foundation is urgently needed.

Our students are already feeling the impacts of the disruption I have described. Young people are resilient, but too often, the kids are not all right. A major reason is that they are drowning in tech.

When I started teaching in the ’90s, education technology was just being introduced. School computers were glorified typewriters with no internet connection. Students had to go to the office to make a phone call. In the 2010s, many schools began providing laptops to students; in this decade, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the tech takeover. Today, many school systems provide every student—some as young as 5—with a device. More than half of 11-year-olds have a smartphone ever-ready at their fingertips, soaring to 95 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds. Four in 10 teens say they are online “almost constantly.” The pace of this tech revolution has been blisteringly fast—and kids are getting burned.

As professor and author of The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt, says, cell phones and social media are making our kids sedentary, solitary, anxious and depressed. On top of that, there are growing concerns about the adverse effects of all this tech on students’ cognition, attention and achievement.

Jared Cooney Horvath, a leading neuroscientist, recently analyzed how reading and math trends shifted after state-by-state expansion of education technology. Prior to large-scale digital adoption, fourth and eighth graders’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress had been rising steadily for years. After adoption, the trajectory shifted, often sharply, toward decline. Correlation is not causation, but Horvath cites research indicating that this pattern appears across states, countries, grade levels, subjects and years. The recently released Education Scorecard, which draws on a huge amount of student data, identifies the same correlation.

Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham notes that it’s not that students can’t pay attention, but likely rather that they are less willing to pay attention. They are so accustomed to the immediate rewards they get online that they find schoolwork comparatively boring. Fortunately, that’s a problem we can deal with.

But before we turn to solutions, we need to talk about artificial intelligence. We are at a crossroads that will define the future of work and society. Without proper oversight and strong guardrails, there will be real dangers to our safety and privacy, to the climate and the very fabric of society.

One thing the AI revolution does not change is the essential purpose of education: teaching students how to think, how to connect, and giving them enough knowledge to do both well.

In fact, the ubiquity of AI makes critical thinking and applying knowledge even more important. Students need to go beyond memorizing facts and learn how to verify them, challenge them and synthesize them into new ideas. Some of the most valuable skills in the AI age—like problem-solving, communication, collaboration, adaptability and ethical judgment—depend on the ability to apply knowledge. But AI is increasing so-called cognitive offloading; rather than working through a challenge, students can turn to an AI chatbot for an effortless answer.

Research has established that less tech can produce better outcomes. For example, people learn more from hard-copy than digital text and by taking notes on paper. And learning is a deeply human endeavor; the student-teacher relationship produces one of the largest effects in educational research. Yet best practices in education, brain research and the science of learning too often take a backseat to market forces and political influence. The global education technology market was estimated at $187 billion in 2025, and the industry is seeking more. And that’s just ed tech, not all tech.

I’m not calling for an AI ban or a Chromebook bonfire. What I am calling for is getting the balance right to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating the harms. I’m wary of the dangers of AI, but it is here to stay. We need enforceable guardrails and help to cushion the disruption to people’s lives.

A new vision to boost teaching and learning in the AI era

Today I am proposing a 10-point plan addressing all of this, to boost student learning and success in the age of AI:

1. No screens (including online assessments) for students in prekindergarten through second grade, unless there is a compelling reason, such as to most effectively support a student with special needs.
2. No student-facing AI in elementary schools—not only to prevent harm, but to build children’s skills like relationship-building and persistence. All other student-facing AI, including digital literacy efforts, must be supervised by educators. And until at least age 16, there should be a total ban on so-called “social companion” chatbots, computer programs that simulate human relationships.
3. Redesign schooling so active learning, including project-based, experiential and career-connected learning, is the norm across all grade levels. That means redesigning accountability as well.
4. Ensure students have a solid foundation in literacy, numeracy and civic engagement.
5. Focus on well-being, so that students and their families have their basic needs met and students are prepared to learn, as community schools do so successfully.
6. Protect intellectual property and academic freedom, and support educators to understand, effectively use and make classroom-based decisions about technology integration.
7. Establish a new gold standard for safety and privacy for the use of AI in schools. Providers that cannot meet these requirements should not be eligible to serve the K-12 education sector.
8. Establish an independent research consortium to build a strong knowledge base for effective practices for education that can be sustained and scaled. The research should include the effects of AI, screens and technology on students, and should not be paid for by the industries whose products are being researched.
9. Ensure adequate funding of education by states and the federal government. This means reversing the trend of disinvestment since the Great Recession and targeting funding to level the playing field and promote opportunity for all students—and not letting AI and vouchers further defund public education.
10. A “tech tax” on Big Tech’s earnings and on some business operations, to ensure they pay their fair share for the adverse and disruptive consequences of this technology on American families, such as workers being displaced by AI.

Ten points. To ensure our students are prepared for the future, we need a “devices-down, eyes-up, hands-on” strategy.

The crux of this 10-point plan is what this will look like at the school level. What happens when we put devices down? What does “eyes up, hands-on” really mean?

It means prioritizing active learning through meaningful projects—which can range from students creating an eco-friendly garden, to planning and budgeting for a school event, to developing a policy solution to a local issue and presenting it to town officials, to keeping a diary from the perspective of a historical figure. From play for our littlest ones, to debate for older kids, to music and art for all—this is meaningful learning.

This kind of learning is the opposite of drill-and-kill, of students memorizing and regurgitating content. And active learning is the antidote to cognitive offloading—that is, outsourcing thinking to AI.

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation, public schools remain—as the founders argued—essential to forging a pluralistic, unified nation that is stronger tomorrow than today. By bringing together children of different races, religions, languages and cultures, public school classrooms are laboratories of democracy that forge bonds and bridge our differences—if we support and nourish them.

We need a relentless, intentional focus on what our young people need: greater literacy, numeracy and civic engagement, and active learning that excites and engages them—all while ensuring their social and mental well-being and ability to form healthy relationships. Devices down, eyes up, hands-on.

Click here to read the full speech.