Overview:
Randi Weingarten unveils "devices down, eyes up, hands-on" vision at National Press Club address
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten delivered a sweeping address at the National Press Club, outlining a 10-point plan to limit student screen time and student-facing artificial intelligence in schools, arguing that the rapid expansion of classroom technology has caused measurable harm to children’s learning, attention, and well-being.
The speech, titled “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands-On: 10 Points to Boost Teaching and Learning in the AI Era,” marks one of the most detailed policy proposals on classroom technology from a major national education union leader. Weingarten leads the 1.8 million-member AFT.
The Core Proposals
The plan’s most immediate and concrete demands center on restricting screens and AI for younger students. Weingarten called for a complete ban on screens — including online assessments — for students in pre-K through second grade, with exceptions only for students with special needs where technology would provide the most effective support.
For elementary schools more broadly, she called for an end to all student-facing AI. She also proposed a total ban, until at least age 16, on so-called “social companion” chatbots — programs designed to simulate human relationships with users.
“We are at a crossroads that will define the future of work and society,” Weingarten said. “Without proper oversight and strong guardrails, there will be real dangers to our safety, privacy, climate and the very fabric of society.”
She was careful to frame the proposal as one of balance rather than rejection. “I’m 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 Research Behind the Push
Weingarten cited neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath’s analysis of reading and math trends following the state-by-state expansion of education technology. Prior to large-scale digital adoption, fourth and eighth-grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress had been rising. After adoption, that trajectory shifted downward — a pattern Horvath argues appears across states, countries, grade levels, and subjects.
She also cited cognitive scientist Dan Willingham’s observation that the problem may not be that students cannot pay attention, but that they have become less willing to do so — conditioned by the immediate rewards of online content to find traditional schoolwork comparatively unrewarding.
Weingarten pointed to a survey of 3,000 teachers in which 88 percent reported that their students’ attention spans were getting shorter, as well as research showing that people learn more from hard-copy text than digital text and that note-taking by hand produces better retention than typing.
“Intentional or not, all this tech has been a huge experiment on kids,” she said, “and experiments can go wrong.”
International Trends
Weingarten highlighted a growing international movement toward reversing earlier commitments to classroom technology. Sweden has shifted back to printed textbooks and limited screen use in schools. Estonia, which found that higher screen time for young children was associated with diminished language skills, has moved toward emphasizing human-to-human interaction. Italy has returned to handwriting, paper materials, and traditional teaching methods.
In the United States, she noted, Dallas schools one year into a bell-to-bell cellphone ban have seen a 24 percent increase in library book checkouts. The Los Angeles Unified School District recently reversed course after years of promoting classroom technology, prohibiting screens for kindergarten and first-grade students and capping usage for older ones. Thirty-one states have now implemented some form of phone ban during the school day.
AI in Schools: A Standard, Not a Ban
While calling for restrictions on student-facing AI and companion chatbots, Weingarten stopped short of calling for a wholesale prohibition on AI tools in education. Instead, she announced that the AFT’s National Academy for AI Instruction — a training hub she said is designed and run by educators — is working to negotiate what she described as a “gold standard” for safety and privacy in the use of AI in K-12 schools.
Under her proposal, any provider of AI-driven services to educators or students would be required to meet that standard. “Companies that refuse to abide by such a standard must be prohibited from working in our schools,” she said.
She noted that Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have agreed in principle to the overarching tenets of the proposed standard, while adding the caveat familiar to any negotiator: “It’s not done until it’s done.”
Weingarten also called for an independent research consortium — separate from both political influence and the technology industry — to study the effects of screens, AI, and technology on students. “It simply does not make any sense for the 50 states, or the 13,000 school districts in the U.S., to each research the most effective reading strategies, or how much and what type of screen time is appropriate for children at various ages,” she said.
A Broader Vision
The technology proposals were embedded in a broader education agenda that included calls for active and project-based learning, expanded community schools, increased educator pay, reduced class sizes, and opposition to private school voucher programs. Weingarten argued that vouchers have “produced some of the largest declines in student learning in the research record” and divert taxpayer dollars away from the public schools attended by 90 percent of American students.
She also proposed a “tech tax” on Big Tech companies to offset what she described as the adverse social consequences of AI — including worker displacement — arguing that “tech titans are amassing mind-blowing wealth, while ordinary people are paying enormous costs for living in the AI age.”
Weingarten directed pointed criticism at both Republicans and Democrats. While accusing the Trump administration of actively undermining public education and giving “Big Tech carte blanche,” she also said too many Democratic leaders are “frankly AWOL” on public education, with some pushing high-stakes testing or privatization.
The Underlying Argument
Running through the speech was a consistent argument: that the essential purpose of education has not changed in the AI era, and that the proliferation of AI tools makes that purpose more urgent, not less.
“One thing the AI revolution does not change is the essential purpose of education: teaching students how to think, how to connect, and giving them enough knowledge to do both well,” Weingarten said. “In fact, the ubiquity of AI makes critical thinking and applying knowledge even more important.”
She argued that AI’s capacity for what researchers call “cognitive offloading” — allowing students to receive instant answers without working through problems themselves — poses a direct threat to the development of the reasoning, collaboration, and problem-solving skills that will be most valuable in the decades ahead.
“When so much information is only a prompt away,” she said, “acquiring trustworthy knowledge is just the first step.”
