Edtech is worth fighting for (1 of 2)
The case against blanket "edtech" bans and a discussion of the evidence that's being manipulated and ignored.
They’re coming for your Chromebooks.
In testimony before the United States Senate last month, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath and Ms. Emily Cherkin testified that educational technology should be removed from K12 classrooms. When asked how we might improve edtech, rather than ban it, Dr. Horvath responded:
“Man, I could ask you, “How do I make anthrax better?” Maybe the answer is you don’t.”
Pretty radical stuff.
It felt even more radical juxtaposed against the testimony of Dr. Jean Twenge, a researcher from San Diego State University, and Dr. Jenny Radesky, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan. Dr. Twenge and Dr. Radesky’s testimony focused on cellphones, social media, and their impact on children. This was the primary focus of the hearing. They made an even-handed, evidence-based, and compelling case for passing the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA). KOSMA would ban social media for children under 13, bar companies from using personalization algorithms for users under age 17, and require schools to block access to social media on school networks.
It was jarring to contrast their testimony with the polemic, at times sarcastic, testimony of Dr. Horvath and, to a lesser extent, Ms. Cherkin. Both repeatedly attempted to push the committee beyond the scope of the current bill and strip almost all educational technology from K12 classrooms.
As someone who’s experienced the power of educational technology and who saw a measurable positive impact on learning outcomes in my classroom as a direct result of it, the testimony was baffling. As someone currently spending about 60 hours a week building an edtech tool that I believe in, it was infuriating. (I also want to admit, up front, that I recognize that this undercuts my objectivity to some extent.)
But.
Respectfully engaging with those who hold different opinions is important. I wrote about this recently, ironically enough, in response to an experience with Dr. Horvath.
In the spirit of the dialectical thinking I argued for in that post, I read up on the evidence that Dr. Horvath and Ms. Cherkin presented, both in their testimony and through their consulting companies.
I learned a lot. In some cases, they make great points that we in the edtech industry would do well to heed. In many others, they’re lying. Sometimes overtly, but more often in the style common in Senate subcommittee hearings: By omission and manipulation.
There is too much to cover here in one post, so we’ll do it in two. My core argument, for the TL/DR crowd, is this: Technology is a medium, not an intervention. Outcomes depend on implementation, and blanket bans ignore thoughtful instructional design and implementation. The right unit of analysis for edtech is use case, not presence.
With that, we’ll start with Ms. Cherkin, who presents “4 key harms” that she believes justify the banning of edtech in K12 classrooms: Student privacy, skill displacement, harm to learning, and harm to teaching.
On Student Privacy
1. “96% of applications used in schools sell children’s data to third parties.” A 2022 Internet Safety Labs report is used as evidence.
This is not true. The Internet Safety Labs report states that “Nearly all apps (96%) share children’s personal information with third parties.” Sharing personal information is completely different from selling it.
Internet Safety Labs uses a broad definition of “third-party data sharing” that counts any instance where student data is transmitted outside the app to another company’s servers. In this broad definition, any app that is cloud hosted qualifies as “data sharing.” It doesn’t matter whether it be crash reporting, hosting a database, or simply authenticating that someone has an email with Google so they can sign in. All is considered third-party sharing. Collapsing these routine, service-related data flows into the claim that apps are “selling children’s data” is a category error.
It’s illegal for edtech companies that sell their products into public schools to sell children’s data. COPPA and FERPA laws help protect against it, as do basic data privacy agreements (DPAs). Here’s a template of one we recently signed that is used by 16 US States. To quote section 4 of that DPA: “Provider will not Sell Student Data to any third party.”
Direct-to-consumer products in app stores downloaded on personal devices outside of school might be different, but as someone who spends an inordinate amount of time reading DPAs, I can tell you with confidence that 96% of edtech applications used in schools do not sell students’ data. It is against the law.
2. “If a company collects data, it is vulnerable to cyberattacks.”
Standard DPAs require that edtech companies conduct regular penetration testing and security auditing to guard against cyberattacks. Many also require that edtech companies carry multi-million dollar cybersecurity insurance coverage so that, in case of a cyberattack, the school district can be reimbursed.
Ms. Cherkin is correct that edtech services are prone to cyberattacks.… as are banks, insurance providers, hospitals, public transit records, the IRS, Social Security, and almost every other aspect of modern life that is digital and connected to the internet.
3. “Schools ask children to sign user agreements before utilizing any of the school-issued devices or required EdTech platforms. Parents are not fully aware of what their children are consenting to or how their children’s data is being used.”
This is true, but overstated. Parents often sign off on acceptable use policies without considering what they’re signing off on. Luckily, most are benign legal documents, akin to student handbooks, that exist to give districts avenues for recourse when students damage devices or intentionally use technology inappropriately. If you want to read one, here’s one from the district tech office I worked in.
Aside from this, COPPA protects families from both edtech and school district overreach. That law is in the process of being strengthened.
On Skill Displacement
4. “Time spent on screens is time not spent in other activities. Children 8-18 years old now average 7.5 hours per day on screens, outside of school hours…it doesn’t matter where “screen time” occurs: time spent on screens is time not spent doing other things.”
It is true that kids spend 7+ hours on screens daily, not counting school. This is deeply concerning, and what made Dr. Twenge and Dr. Radesky’s testimony so powerful. I generally support KOSMA because of it.
That said…what does this have to do with edtech? Why is there no distinction being made between a student scrolling through TikTok at 1 a.m. on a school night vs. a student logging into Google Classroom to complete a check for understanding quiz under the direct guidance of a licensed professional? Because they both take place on screens, we’re supposed to believe they’re equally bad. That is nonsense.
Kids spend too much time on their cell phones and social media, the negative effects of which are well-documented. We should hold social media companies accountable and work as parents, schools, and a society to address this. Restricting classroom technology will do nothing to help. It will penalize educators by removing important teaching tools from their hands while doing nothing to solve the root cause of digital addiction: Cell phones and social media.
On Learning
5. “EdTech tools do not improve learning outcomes. In the United States, student math and reading scores have dropped in the past decade.”
This is a logical fallacy: Post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc. After, therefore, because of. EdTech use increased, yet scores dropped, so EdTech caused the drop.
Correlation is not causation. Correlation means two things are happening at the same time. Causation means one thing makes the other thing happen. Just because two trends are rising together doesn’t mean they are connected. People who carry umbrellas are also more likely to wear rain boots. One didn’t cause the other, the rain did.
In the case of test score declines, the “rain” might be edtech. It might also be chronic absenteeism. Or teacher shortages and turnover. Or constant curriculum shifts (e.g., math wars, balanced literacy debates). Or rising childhood poverty. Or, mental health challenges associated with phones and social media use. Or a decline in reading for pleasure. Or, in recent years, a historic global pandemic. All of these also correlate with declining test scores. It doesn’t mean they caused the decline.
Maybe more importantly, “edtech” is not a single treatment. There are thousands of digital learning tools and curricula. We cannot lump them all together into one “effect size” because they happen to have a screen and be connected to the internet. It’s like saying medicine doesn’t improve health. Which medicine, and for which ailments?
A medium of instruction is different from an instructional method.
Technology is a medium, not an intervention.
Also, many great edtech tools are not primarily designed to improve standardized test scores. If an edtech tool’s theory of change isn’t focused on raising PISA or NAEP scores, then declines in those scores don’t falsify their value.
As an example, I would sometimes use a digital discussion board called Flipgrid when I taught middle school social studies. I loved it. During the State of the Union address, I had students post their reactions live while watching at home. The goal was for my students to connect in-class content to real-world contexts and engage with their peers in civic dialogue. This was during Trump’s first year in office, so it was…um…an important time to encourage civil dialogue in a social studies classroom. Dismissing this sort of relevant, human experience because it doesn’t move the needle on NAEP scores is a rejection of some of the primary reasons we educate kids.
6. A report in Science Direct found that when students use a laptop in class, 38 minutes of every 60 minutes are spent off task. Expecting children to stay “on task” when provided with an internet-connected device that has access to YouTube is absurd from a brain development perspective.”
This is true, but it lies by omission: This study was done in the context of an unmonitored, large lecture-based (3000 enrolled students) undergraduate course with students using personal devices. That is a completely different context than a classroom of twenty 7th graders using school-managed devices, with school-managed wifi networks and content filters, under direct guidance from a professional educator. (Dr. Horvath similarly misrepresents this study within the first 5 pages of his book.)
The larger point is valid. Laptops and internet browsers can be very distracting for kids. Edtech tools need to do a better job of addressing this through more intentional instructional design and stronger training and implementation support. Just as importantly, educators can help by using technology as the targeted tool it should be, used for specific purposes that it is uniquely good for, then put it away. Technology should not be used as something you simply park a student in front of and let them use, unmonitored (more on this in an upcoming post).
7. A recent United Nations Global Education Monitoring Report found: “There is little robust evidence on digital technology’s added value in education…and [the evidence that does exist] comes from those trying to sell it.”
This report is as legitimate as it gets, but it’s nuanced. It’s almost 550-pages, so I can’t recount all of it here. The criticism of edtech publishing its own efficacy research is legitimate, and something I plan to write about more soon.
That said, this report expressly does not support the ban of edtech in K12 classrooms. It argues against both blanket bans and blanket adoption. To quote the report:
“This report’s basic premise is that technology should serve people and that technology in education should put learners and teachers at the centre….Technology should not be viewed as the solution, but as a supportive tool in overcoming certain barriers to education access.”
Its core position, as it should be, is that good edtech use is conditional. It depends on context, implementation, and matching the problem to the tool rather than the other way around.
You wouldn’t walk away with this understanding if you were to only read Ms. Cherkin’s cherry-picked quote. That quote comes from page 3 of the report. Here are some other quotes from that page:
“Technology offers an education lifeline for millions but excludes many more.”
“Accessible technology and universal design have opened up opportunities for learners with disabilities.”
“Some education technology can improve some types of learning in some contexts.”
“Digital technology has dramatically increased access to teaching and learning resources.”
“Digital technology has brought small to medium-sized positive effects to some types of learning.”
On Teaching
8. “In an attempt to address large class sizes…schools choose to install surveillance software on student computers to “help” the teachers. Such platforms enable teachers to view each student’s individual screens simultaneously, pulling teachers away from direct instruction or engaging with students.”
It’s hard to address this claim, as Ms. Cherkin doesn’t specify what “surveillance software” she’s referencing. Regardless, it’s a strange argument, because technology enables the opposite.
As an example, one of the great affordances of technology in classrooms is its ability to be used as an all-student response system during direct instruction. An oldie but a goodie here is Socrative. It has a feature that lets students submit short constructed responses, then vote on who has the strongest response. Simple, but a great way to check for understanding during direct instruction, because it challenges each student to construct understanding and analyze worked examples of peers. In the age of AI, we can augment this further, giving each student a proficiency score and feedback on constructed understanding to move beyond simple right/wrong binaries. Critically, those trends are built on the submissions of all students, and those trends can be used to adjust direct instruction in the moment to better address student misunderstanding.
In this way, technology does not pull teachers away from direct instruction. If used correctly, it makes direct instruction more effective. To give the specific examples that Ms. Cherkin fails to provide, see Socrative, Peardeck, Nearpod, Formative, Wayground, and many more. These are massively popular instruction and assessment platforms that teachers have used to make direct instruction more effective for decades. They are not “surveillance software.”
Conclusion
Ms. Cherkin’s case for limiting edtech in K12 just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Her concerns around privacy, cybersecurity, and distraction are legitimate, but her evidence repeatedly relies on category errors, missing context, and what seems to be a growing policy trick: weaponizing “screen time” into a singular, simplistic negative. In this worldview, TikTok scrolling at 2 am on a school night is somehow the same as logging in to Google Classroom to do a check for understanding quiz on Chapter 6 of the Great Gatsby under the guidance of a trained professional.
We have to be more thoughtful about these distinctions.
We should not be using these oversimplified conclusions to guide national education policy in the United States.
In the next post, we’ll look at the arguments and data presented by Dr. Horvath. We’ll see many of the same flaws.
Thanks for this! And for reminding me how much I love and miss West Wing. Great piece here.
Thank you for writing this!