As lawmakers look ahead to 2027, they have a rare chance to ask a simple question most educrats dodge: do Texas kids really learn more when every lesson is mediated by a glowing screen?
New interim charges from House leadership direct key committees to examine how technology is reshaping Texas classrooms and Texas kids.
The House Public Health Committee has been ordered to “study the impact of social media platforms and artificial intelligence technologies on the mental health, cognitive development, and behavioral well‑being of minors in Texas.”
The House Public Education Committee, meanwhile, must review “the role of technology and artificial intelligence” as it studies academic outcomes and enrollment trends. It is also asked to “identify emerging challenges, opportunities, and best practices” and suggest ways to streamline laws and rules so districts can operate more efficiently.
On paper, that’s broad enough to let lawmakers draw a line between genuinely useful tools and the flood of gadgets and platforms that mostly distract students, harvest data, and eat up instructional time.
Other countries are already backing away from the “edtech at any cost” model that has captivated many American districts.
Sweden spent more than a decade trying to replace traditional textbooks with tablets and laptops, only to watch reading performance fall, attention spans shorten, and critical thinking skills weaken. Officials and outside researchers connected these declines to heavy screen use, especially in the early grades.
In response, Sweden is now spending more than €100 million so every student has a physical textbook for each core subject. Printed books, handwriting, and face‑to‑face discussion are being restored to the center of the classroom, while screens are demoted to a supporting role.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation has begun calling it the “edtech lie.”
As TPPF’s David Dunmoyer notes, one estimate suggests students now spend more than 20 percent of instructional time on school‑issued devices—a figure that grew rapidly during and after the pandemic.
Now that the emergency has passed and more data are available, research overwhelmingly shows that personal devices and constant connectivity are reducing student attention, increasing distraction and off‑task behavior, and undermining academic performance.
The TPPF analysis argues that Texas is only skating the edges by banning student use of personal cell phones during the school day under House Bill 1481 passed last year.
If lawmakers are serious about student outcomes, Dunmoyer argues they will need to go further.
This could include treating school‑issued devices as specialized tools rather than default platforms, and scrutinizing edtech contracts just as aggressively as any other major vendor deal.
The new interim charges give conservative legislators a clear runway to ask questions such as:
- How much instructional time, on average, are students spending on screens issued or managed by the school, broken down by grade level and subject?
- What independent evidence can districts provide that specific devices, apps, or “learning platforms” are actually improving reading, math, or content knowledge—not just test‑prep scores or engagement metrics defined by vendors?
- How are schools protecting minors from the mental health harms of social media, AI‑driven content feeds, and addictive design, both on personal devices and on school‑issued hardware?
- What is the total cost—licenses, hardware, IT staff, replacement cycles, digital‑curriculum fees—of maintaining the current tech stack, and how does that compare to buying and updating physical textbooks and other traditional materials?
Removing excess technology doesn’t mean abolishing every computer in a Texas classroom, but drawing sharper boundaries so tools serve teaching rather than teachers serving as IT help.
New legislation could restrict one‑to‑one personal device use in early grades, where the harms to reading and attention appear greatest, and instead prioritize phonics‑based reading instruction, handwriting, and printed materials.
It could also require any new edtech purchase over a set dollar threshold to include an independent evidence review showing measurable academic benefits—not just vendor claims or soft “engagement” metrics.
As parents take back control of their children’s education, lawmakers could insist on transparency for them, such as dashboards showing what apps, platforms, and third‑party services are used in a child’s classroom, what data they collect, and how long that data is stored.
While parents have warned that technology is turning kids into test subjects for unaccountable corporations, the House’s interim charges could translate into action in the Capitol.
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