AFT President calls for ban on screen, AI surveillance in schools with 10-point education system

The president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten presented a sweeping speech at the National Press Club, outlining a 10-point plan to limit student screen time and artificial intelligence facing students in schools, asserting that the rapid increase in classroom technology has caused limited harm to children’s learning, attention, and well-being.

The speech, titled “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands Open: 10 Points to Improve Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI,” marks one of the most detailed policy proposals for classroom technology from a top national education union leader. Weingarten leads the 1.8 million member AFT.

Key Suggestions

The immediate and tangible needs of the program focus on limiting screens and AI for young learners. Weingarten called for a complete ban on screens — including online tests — for students in pre-K through second grade, except for students with special needs where technology would provide more effective support.

In primary schools more broadly, he called for an end to all AI targeting students. He also proposed a complete ban, until at least 16 years of age, in the so-called “social companion” chats – 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 guidelines, there will be real risks to our safety, our privacy, our climate and our community base.”

He was careful to frame the proposal as one of moderation rather than rejection. “I’m not asking for a ban on AI or a Chromebook fire,” he said. “What I’m looking for is finding the right balance to use the benefits of technology while minimizing harm.”

Research After the Push

Weingarten cited neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath in an analysis of learning and math trends following the state-by-state expansion of educational technology. Prior to mass digital adoption, fourth- and eighth-grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress had been rising. After the discovery, that idea trickled down — a pattern that Horvath argues appears across states, countries, grade levels, and subjects.

He also cited psychologist Dan Willingham’s observation that the problem may not be that students can’t pay attention, but that they’re less willing to do so — set by the immediate rewards of online content to make traditional schoolwork relatively unrewarding.

Weingarten pointed to a survey of 3,000 teachers in which 88 percent reported that their students’ attention spans are getting shorter, as well as research showing that people learn more from hard-copy text than from digital text and that manual note-taking produces better retention than typing.

He said: “Deliberately or not, all this technology was a huge experiment on children, and experiments can go wrong.”

International Trends

Weingarten highlighted a growing international movement toward restoring prior commitments to classroom technology. Sweden has returned to printed books and limited screen use in schools. Estonia, which found that high screen time for young children was associated with reduced language skills, has moved to emphasize interpersonal communication. Italy returned to handwriting, paper materials, and traditional teaching methods.

In the United States, he noted, Dallas schools within one year of banning cell phones have seen a 24 percent increase in library checkouts. The Los Angeles Unified School District recently rescinded the course after years of improving classroom technology, banning screens for kindergarten and first graders and limited use for adults. Thirty-one states now implement some form of ban on calls during the school day.

AI in Schools: Standard, Not Ban

While calling for limits on student-facing AI and related discussions, Weingarten stopped short of calling for an outright ban on AI tools in education. Instead, he announced that the AFT’s National Academy for AI Instruction — a training center he says is designed and run by educators — is working to negotiate what he described as the “gold standard” for safety and privacy in the use of AI in K-12 schools.

Under his proposal, any provider of AI-driven services to teachers or students would have to meet that standard. “Companies that refuse to follow such standards must be prohibited from working in our schools,” he said.

He noted that Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have basically agreed on the best practices of the proposed standard, while adding a caveat common to any negotiator: “It’s not done until it’s done.”

Weingarten has also called for an independent research consortium – which includes both political influence and the technology industry – to study the effects of screens, AI, and technology on students. “It doesn’t make sense for the 50 states, or the 13,000 school districts in the US, to do individual research on the most effective learning strategies, or how much and what kind of screen time is appropriate for children of different ages,” she said.

A Broader View

The technology proposals were focused on a broad education agenda that included calls for active and project-based learning, expanded public schools, increased teacher salaries, reduced class sizes, and opposition to private school voucher programs. Weingarten argued that vouchers “produced the largest drop in student learning in the research record” and diverted taxpayer dollars from public schools attended by 90 percent of America’s students.

He also proposed a “technology tax” on Big Tech companies to reduce what he described as the negative social consequences of AI – including the layoffs – saying “tech titans are amassing mind-boggling wealth, while ordinary people pay the high cost of living in the AI ​​age.”

Weingarten directed direct criticism at both Republicans and Democrats. While he accused the Trump administration of actively undermining public education and giving “Big Tech carte blanche,” he also said many Democratic leaders are “unequivocally AWOL” on public education, with some pushing for higher testing or privatization.

Basic Argument

Running through the talk 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 hasn’t changed is the fundamental purpose of education: to teach students how to think, to communicate, and to give them enough knowledge to do both well,” Weingarten said. “In fact, the proliferation of AI makes critical thinking and applying knowledge more important.”

He pointed out that AI’s potential for what researchers call “cognitive overload” – allowing students to get quick answers without having to deal with problems themselves – poses a direct threat to the development of thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills that will be most valuable in the coming decades.

He said: “When so much information is available so quickly, gaining reliable information is only the first step.”