The head of one of the country’s largest teachers unions called for limits on technology in schools in a speech Wednesday, including blocking most students from using computers in class until they reach third grade, prohibiting student-facing AI in elementary schools and banning “social companion” chatbots until age 16.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, declared that students “are drowning in tech.” She proposed an independent research consortium to study the effects of AI and screens on student learning.
“Students need their teachers — real human beings, not robots and not chatbots,” she said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.
Weingarten’s comments signal that she is a prominent new ally to a fast-growing grassroots movement of parents pushing to scale back screen time in public schools. The effort, which has bipartisan support, arises from concerns that completing classwork on school-issued laptops distracts students, leading to worse grades and social skills.
“I am not calling for an AI ban or a Chromebook bonfire,” she said. “What I am calling for is getting the balance right to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating the harms.”
The education labor leader’s speech comes one week after the Trump administration issued a surgeon general’s advisory warning against excessive screen time for children, including in schools. The report urged schools to buy more physical textbooks, prioritize pen-and-paper curricula and make time for more physical and social activities for all grade levels, in addition to banning student cellphones.
Throughout her speech, Weingarten criticized the Trump administration’s education policies and urged officials to do more to combat screens in schools. She blasted the administration for dismantling the Education Department and withholding nearly $300 million in education research funding that could be used to study the most effective teaching methods in the AI era.
“With this administration, we are on our own,” Weingarten said. “Yes, I’m not a detective, I am a schoolteacher, but I see some clues between the Trump administration’s laissez-faire approach to addressing the harms of technology and the tech titans who are funding the president’s ballroom, his presidential library and his political action committees.”
The Trump administration recently enacted regulations to prioritize initiatives “to expand the appropriate and ethical use of AI” in schools. In response to Weingarten’s criticisms, the White House pointed to President Donald Trump’s executive orders designed to advance AI adoption to keep the U.S. competitive globally and asserted that federal spending on the Education Department had not resulted in better academic achievement.
A White House spokesman said Weingarten “is the last person who should be weighing in about what is best for American students” because the AFT pushed for safety measures before schools reopened during the Covid pandemic.
“The Trump Administration is finally putting American students and families first,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.
Many other countries are imposing new rules to curb screen time in schools.
In Sweden, the government has pushed schools to shift back to printed textbooks and pen-and-paper classwork to address a drop in literacy. In Madrid, nearly half a million students face strict limits on using computers or tablets for coursework. China requires schools to provide “screen-free” time.
In the U.S., some states recently began limiting school-issued devices for the youngest students, and a handful of school districts crafted policies this year to scale back technology in the classroom. But many states and districts are also rushing to require AI literacy education for students, and AI use in schools is rising.
Prominent education trade groups have resisted parent demands to put hard limits on computers in schools. The AFT this year endorsed a letter organized by groups representing administrators, librarians and school technology staff members that said pulling back on educational technology would be foolish, because it would leave students “less prepared for both today’s and tomorrow’s demands.”
The AFT has also partnered with OpenAI and Anthropic to train teachers on AI. Weingarten told NBC News that despite their collaboration, she views many of the big technology companies as “playing a really negative role in terms of trying to push more tech into schools.”
Weingarten said in an interview ahead of the speech that her thinking evolved in recent months as she spoke to more parents and teachers and as her staff compiled research on the impact of devices on children’s attention spans. She was alarmed when she heard parents increasingly tell her that they planned to opt their children out of using screens at school. She envisioned a classroom divided in half: “How would anybody be able to teach?”
In response to the rise of AI, Weingarten argues that public education ought to focus on skills like communication and collaboration and should teach students ways to apply knowledge with “career-connected” instruction, such as building portfolios, completing internships and gaining industry certification. She also believes any limits on using devices in schools need to be flexible, to accommodate students with disabilities who benefit from the technology.
“This can’t simply be a call for what should stop,” she told NBC News. “This needs to be a call for what we should be doing instead.”
