Maybe the Problem Isn’t Too Much Technology

Last week, I posted this blog about the Current State of AI. In it, I explored how some schools have started to push back on the integration of the tool for various reasons. In writing that piece, I reflected on the hundreds of schools I’ve been able to work with on integration, including two of the largest school systems in the country: New York City Department of Education and Los Angeles Unified School District.

The purpose of both of those visits was to talk with a small percentage of staff about AI literacy and discuss strategies for thoughtful integration of these tools. Candidly, both districts are behemoths that have thousands of teachers and millions of students. Being able to speak to some of them is great, but, needless to say, without support, expectations and follow-through, change takes a long time to take hold in districts of these sizes. What is somewhat surprising to me is that both districts are now pulling back on technology in significant ways.

For the 2026–27 school year, NYC has placed a moratorium on student-facing generative AI through 8th grade while also establishing new limits on individual screen time. LAUSD, which has had a checkered past when it comes to educational technology, has also introduced screen-time guidance and tighter restrictions around how technology and AI are used with students.

My first instinct as someone who has not only visited both of these districts but also spent most of his career advocating for thoughtful technology integration might be to push back. These changes caused me to reflect on my own message and delivery. The feedback from my visits were extremely positive, but I started to think, what was the follow-up work done after I came to town? How were those staff supported and what were their expectations from campus administration? Why would they change course from pursuing thoughtful integration of technology to now banning it?

The truth, I don’t think these districts are crazy or wrong in their recent actions. In fact, I think they may be exposing a much bigger problem in education. Now before you think oh no, Carl’s gone off the deep end…Allow me to explain my thinking.

The Part We Forgot About 1:1

Back in 2011, my district helped lead the charge in the state of Texas when it comes to 1:1 devices for students. When we started putting a device in the hands of every student, there was a lot of conversation about the devices. Which device should we buy? How much will they cost? What apps should we use? How do we manage them? But one of the reasons why we were successful with our 1:1 program was that we understood something else:

The device was never the implementation.

The implementation was the people surrounding the device.

I spent the better part of my tenure at Eanes ISD helping build that infrastructure to support a large 1:1 student device initiative. Infrastructure in this case doesn’t just mean the wires in the walls or the best network filtering model. It means creating the optimal environment to utilize technology for effective learning. In fact, in writing this post, I even went back and found a blog titled “Why Your 1:1 Deployment Will Fail” that predicted a lot of what we are seeing some 13 years later.

We had instructional technology support from an amazing team of Ed Tech professionals I called the “iVengers”. We had librarians who helped with the day-to-day issues that would pop up when you have thousands of student devices everywhere. We had campus leaders who understood the work and baked it into their expectations of use with teacher evaluations. We had teachers willing to experiment and pilot new ideas as long as those ideas helped with student learning.

Most importantly, we created professional learning around every app, tool, subject and strategy to help go from implementation to integration. That professional learning sometimes meant modeling lessons or doing classroom walk-throughs. It meant coaching and supporting teachers. It meant we gave ourselves time and grace to work through failures and constantly adjust.

Believe me, it wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But that’s actually the point. We had people whose job it was to help us work through the imperfections.

Then We Started Removing the People

This is the part of the technology conversation that I don’t think gets nearly enough attention. Over time, many districts have eliminated or reduced the very positions that made successful technology integration possible. Instructional technology coaches disappear. Digital learning positions get consolidated. Librarians get cut. Professional learning budgets shrink. Teachers are given less time to collaborate, experiment and learn.

And yet the technology keeps coming.

Now add generative AI into that environment. We are handing educators and students arguably the most disruptive learning technology we’ve seen since the arrival of the internet and essentially saying“Good luck.” That’s not innovation. That’s abandonment.

Maybe a Ban Is Sometimes the Responsible Choice

I know this might sound strange coming from me, but here it is…. If you cannot adequately support the use of a technology, there are situations where not using it may be better than using it badly.

Putting a Chromebook in front of a student for six hours isn’t technology integration. Having students do homework on platforms that essentially are just a more interactive digital worksheet isn’t really helping with deeper learning. Giving students access to AI without teaching them when to use it, when not to use it, how to question it and how to think without it isn’t AI literacy. Technology without pedagogy quickly becomes consumption. It’s part of the reason why parents pushed back so hard against our iPad implementation originally. They see these devices as toys, games, and distraction.

The same can be said for AI. If you push out AI without guidance, it can quickly become a shortcut for kids rather than a way for them to think more critically or deeply. Yes, AI can generate a pretty neat little graphic, but how is helping with the productive struggle that comes with learning? None of these outcomes are what those of us who advocate for technology in schools actually want.

So when a large district like LA or NY decides it needs to pull back, I don’t automatically see that as a failure to embrace the future. Sometimes it’s an admission that the infrastructure isn’t there yet. And that’s worth paying attention to.

Banning Is Easier Than Building

Here’s where I worry. A ban can solve an immediate problem, but it doesn’t solve the underlying one. You can block AI tomorrow and you can limit screen time. You can collect phones and shut down websites. But eventually students are going to leave our institutions and go out in the “real world.”And the real world they’re entering isn’t banning AI or screens. The workplace isn’t going back to 2008. A couple of months ago I wrote about this very phenomonen about screen time having its “Footloose” moment.

Our students are eventually going to need to know how to work with these tools without allowing the tools to do all of their thinking for them. That’s a much harder challenge than simply blocking access. Most of these tools require students to be 13+ to utilize them, but much of the foundation for AI literacy must be laid before then. Which means the long-term answer can’t just be restriction, it has to be to build capacity.

Before You Buy Another Tool, Invest in a Person

This is where I think district leaders need to reconsider how we budget for technology. When we calculate the cost of a technology initiative, we usually calculate hardware, software, licensing, infrastructure and replacement cycles. Professional learning and human support often become an add-on. Instead, they should be part of the purchase price.

If you’re spending millions of dollars putting technology into classrooms but eliminating the people who help teachers use it effectively, you aren’t saving money. You’re reducing the likelihood that your investment will actually improve learning. I’m seeing the same truth with AI.

If you’re a school leader, here’s a good benchmark question to ask before purchasing your next AI platform, ask:

Who is going to help our teachers understand this?

And more specifically, who is modeling what great AI-supported instruction looks like? Who is helping teachers determine when not to use AI? Who is helping students understand bias, hallucinations, ethical use, privacy and intellectual ownership? Who is helping redesign assignments so that thinking still matters? Who is supporting families who understandably have questions? And who has the time to do all of this?

If the answer is “teachers will figure it out,” then we haven’t created a strategy. We’ve created another responsibility. Another unfunded mandate for an already overworked profession. It’s why teachers are mostly happy when we ban phones from schools. It’s one less thing on their plate. A plate that is already overfull and they don’t have any help to carry the weight of it.

Build Your Capacity Before You Need a Ban

I’m a realist and also somewhat of a serial optimist. I know funding is tough, especially in my own home state of Texas. While I don’t think every district needs a giant instructional technology department, every district does need people responsible for helping educators navigate the complicated intersection of technology, pedagogy and learning.

Maybe that’s an instructional technology coach or a librarian. Maybe it’s a teacher-leader model with stipends and release time to help others. Maybe it’s a small innovation team or partnerships with outside experts combined with internal champions.

The organizational chart matters less to me than the commitment if I’m being honest. Ultimately, someone has to own this work and they need time, training and resources to do it. Because the alternative is becoming pretty clear. When we remove the support, the technology gets used poorly. This leads to teachers and families becoming frustrated as students develop unhealthy habits.

Then we blame the technology and take it away.

This Isn’t Really a Technology Problem

There’s a strange irony in all of this. We spent billions of dollars making sure every student had access to technology. Now some of the largest districts in America are trying to figure out how to limit that access. Maybe that’s not evidence that the great education technology experiment failed. Maybe it’s evidence that access was never enough.

Devices don’t transform learning. AI doesn’t transform learning. People do.

The technology can amplify what those people are able to accomplish, but only when we give them the training, time and support to use it intentionally. So before your district starts debating whether it should ban AI, limit screens or pull devices out of classrooms, I’d ask a different question:

Have we invested as much in the people supporting the technology as we have in the technology itself?

Because if we haven’t, maybe the problem isn’t the screen. Maybe it’s everything we removed from around it.