After two decades of pushing technology into every classroom, something unexpected is happening: parents are saying no.
Across the United States, a small but growing number of parents are opting their children out of school-issued Chromebooks and iPads, insisting they learn with pen and paper instead. They're citing screen addiction, privacy concerns, academic research, and a fundamental question we've somehow never answered: does giving every kid a laptop actually improve education?
One mother called it seeking "an analog education." Her student reported headaches from constant screen use and disliked the AI chatbot integrated into the school device. This isn't technophobia - it's parents looking at years of screen time data and deciding the tradeoff isn't worth it.
The concerns are multifaceted. Parents worry that devices enable access to inappropriate content that schools can't adequately control. One father noted his district couldn't block certain websites on school laptops, so he provided his own devices with proper filtering instead. Others point to research showing that students who used computers at school performed worse academically, and that reading on paper improves information retention compared to screens.
Schools haven't made this easy. Initial reactions varied from cooperative to hostile. Some administrators told parents that opting out violated state law - a claim that later proved false when officials relented after teachers agreed to accommodate the requests. The Conejo Valley district eventually allowed teachers to print assignments for opted-out students, but most districts still lack formal opt-out procedures, forcing parents to negotiate individually.
The counterargument from schools is about future readiness. Administrators argue that technology fluency prepares students for workplaces expecting digital competency and AI literacy. In their view, keeping kids off computers in school is setting them up to be left behind.
But education policy researcher Faith Boninger pushes back on that logic: "students don't need to be consumers of this technology in order to be able to use it in 10 or 15 years." The implication is that technology skills are quickly learned when needed, but the foundational skills of reading, writing, and critical thinking require years of practice - practice that might be undermined by constant digital distraction.
The deeper question is one the education technology industry has never satisfactorily answered: where's the evidence?
We've spent billions on classroom technology. We've given millions of students laptops and tablets. We've wired schools for high-speed internet and trained teachers on digital pedagogy. But the academic performance data doesn't show clear benefits. Some studies show slight improvements in specific contexts. Others show no effect or even decline. None show the transformative results that would justify the cost and screen time.
I've built tech. I've shipped products. I know the difference between a demo and something that actually works at scale. And the education technology story smells like a lot of demos followed by inconclusive results.
That doesn't mean technology has no place in education. But it does mean we should be honest about what we're optimizing for. Are we preparing kids for the future? Or are we preparing them to be lifetime customers of education technology companies?
The parents opting out are asking the right question: prove it works. Show us the data that constant screen time in school improves learning outcomes enough to justify the documented harms of excessive screen exposure in developing brains.
Until schools can answer that convincingly, expect more parents to choose the analog option. The technology is impressive. The question is whether anyone needs it - or whether we've been selling a solution in search of a problem.
