Who’s keeping tabs on ed tech in MCPS?
There’s a national revolt against ed tech, and now a local one.
Ready to read something that isn’t a campaign mailer? (But first, read their fine print, and about the “error in the mailhouse.”)
The first request I received to write on ed tech came just after I started this newsletter from Esme, a DCPS fourth grade student. She and her mom wrote:
We are writing to kindly request a blog on Ed Tech. [REDACTED] in particular is so, so unproductive and it makes you dread math! Math is an essential skill, but when it’s being taught wrong, there is no point in it being taught at all.
Esme isn’t the only one with questions about ed tech. At the June 4 MCPS Board of Education meeting, member Julie Yang introduced a resolution to audit student screen time in grades K-8. The Board is scheduled to vote on it July 16; expect public testimony on it at their June 25 meeting.
What is ed tech?
Ed tech includes hardware and software meant to support instruction and learning, generally sold to schools by for-profit vendors. (Tech-free educational materials like textbooks are also sold by for-profit vendors.) The quality of any given product isn’t just determined by its developer, but depends on how it is used. Both sides in this debate acknowledge this nuance as fundamental.
Off the top of my head as a high school parent, MCPS examples include: IXL, Canvas (myMCPS), Delta Math, lots of Google stuff, Chromebooks, and online textbook licenses. MCPS maintains an online digital tools database which is pretty interesting to get a sense of the scope of it (e.g., Office365, a protractor app, encyclopedias–no Delta Math?).
The database refers people to a vetting page where they can submit new tools for review if they can’t find something in there. They are reviewed for how they handle student data privacy.
What do educators think about ed tech?
Given that it depends on how it’s being used, it’s not surprising that it’s all over the map. Results from an Education Week national educator survey released yesterday:
62 percent of respondents said ed tech has negative impacts on students’ “social-emotional skills development,” and 55 percent said it has positive effects on “learning and mastering academic content and skills.”
36 percent agreed that at their schools, “students’ use of technology for school-related purposes does more to decrease than increase learning;” 29 percent agreed with the opposite statement, that it does more to increase than decrease learning, and 36 percent thought it was equally likely to increase and decrease learning.
So maybe the revolt isn’t surprising.
What is the revolt against ed tech?
Schools Beyond Screens is a national parent-led advocacy group for less ed tech.
Montgomery County Council of PTAs Technology Committee chair Betsy Tao started an MCPS chapter of Schools Beyond Screens this spring; over 900 members joined the Google group its first month. Their policy asks include a revised Board policy, a technology audit, minimal tech use in elementary school, no generative AI for student use, a process for parents to formally opt their kids out of instructional tech use, and a media and AI literacy curriculum.
What does it mean to introduce a resolution?
It means a member introduced a discussion draft at one meeting to get a topic onto the agenda for the next one meeting. (If you’re ever trying to figure out this type of detail, check out the MCPS Board of Education Handbook.) It takes a motion and a second, not a vote, to get it on the next meeting’s agenda.
What happened on June 4?
After Julie Yang read the resolution, Laura Stewart seconded it. The discussion lasted about one minute. Karla Silvestre asked how much staff time it would take MCPS to do the audit, and Dr. Taylor said MCPS would provide that information at the next meeting.
Board President Grace Rivera-Oven then mentioned that MCPS has already started this planning and referenced slide 33 of their Levelling Up In 2026-2027 and Beyond presentation from earlier in the June 4 marathon meeting.
So, MCPS has signaled its interest in next year conducting a survey of screen time use and developing “an action plan with measurable goals,” to be implemented and assessed the following year. Keep an eye out to see if the plan specifies what will happen if the check-in reveals goals aren’t being met.
The resolution before the Board is a bigger ask than what’s on this slide.
What’s in the screen time resolution?
Resolutions have two types of statements: whereas, and resolved. There are usually multiple of each. The whereases are like the objective, “given” part of a math problem – though they actually may be contested interpretations. The author of the resolution chooses the whereases strategically, to support the values statements or recommendations that follow.
WHEREAS, the Board is committed to ensuring everyone in our schools experiences physical and psychological safety within an inclusive and welcoming learning environment, which includes ensuring that children cannot access harmful or inappropriate material using school-issued devices; and
WHEREAS, screentime is defined as students accessing digital media on a school-issued device, including but not limited to computers and tablets, on a one-to-one basis expressly for educational purposes, such as learning, studying, or completing schoolwork; and
WHEREAS, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states that on average, children ages 8-18 in the United States spend 7 1/2 hours a day watching or using screens; and
WHEREAS, excessive screen use has been linked to increased eye strain, reduced attention spans, sleep disturbances, and negative effects on mental health, particularly in children and adolescents; and
WHEREAS, screen time particularly impacts younger children, for whom screen exposure could replace foundational activities such as play, movement, fine motor building activities, peer interaction, and self-regulation, and
WHEREAS, research indicates that children 8 to 11 years old who exceed screen time recommendations are at higher risk for obesity and depressive symptoms and have scored lower on cognitive assessments; and
WHEREAS, the Board recognizes that technology plays an essential role in modern education, including for remote learning days and digital curriculum components that are delivered exclusively through online platforms;
WHEREAS, while digital tools have an appropriate place in modern education, their use must be balanced with proven traditional methods to best support student achievement and well-being;
After all the whereases, we get to the meat: the resolveds. This resolution has two. The first one is general:
now be it
RESOLVED, that the Board encourages the responsible use of digital devices, reserving screen time for activities where technology offers clear, independent evidence-based instructional advantages;
The second resolved is where the action is.
RESOLVED, that MCPS will conduct a comprehensive review of student screen time and digital tool use, and prepare and deliver to the Board, no later than March, 2027, a report that:
1) Quantifies average daily and weekly screen time for students in elementary and middle school, during the school day, distinguishing between instructional and non-instructional use, and including program-specific caveats and assessments where appropriate;
2) Assesses whether there are opportunities to reduce screen-time exposure in age-appropriate ways;
3) Assesses the effectiveness of content filters and blocks to protect students from using school-issued devices to access harmful or inappropriate content;
4) Provides a recommendation regarding district-wide guidance for age-appropriate screen time; and
5) Outlines the anticipated costs, benefits, and operational impacts of any proposed changes.
Member Karla Silvestre already teed up one way to frame opposition to this resolution: around the resource demands the audit would place on the district in an already highly constrained situation. One counterargument is that the district might more than make up for those resources through savings on future licenses.
Where does technology offer “clear, independent evidence-based instructional advantages?”
Esme, if you’re waiting for the part where I say that the math product I redacted from your email actually has been proven to be expensive garbage, sorry. Your example is interesting, because they’ve done a good job evaluating it and found positive results (though “results” tend to focus on math test scores, not dread).
There are more and less convincing ways to evaluate programs. A randomized control trial is the most convincing. But even then, the issue is that a program doesn’t always look the same in every district, school, or even classroom. Does the teacher even use it at all? Different teachers teaching the same class in the same school in MCPS can use different ed tech. (I don’t know how common this is but I saw it myself when my child’s schedule switched at the semester.) And is the content in the tech the thing each student needs?
The program evaluation results are going to be averages from many classrooms, but there is enormous variability behind them. Scale is a major challenge in education: why does something that worked well in one place not work in others? That’s why whoever is selecting curricular materials, with or without tech, should first consider the existing research evidence, and then keep evaluating results locally after adoption, down to the classroom level. They might be able to suggest adjustments to how it’s being used, or decide it isn’t a fit and to try something else.
How is the resolution asking for more than what MCPS is planning to do anyway?
First, the resolution asks for a comprehensive review, which is more than a survey (see #1 above). Second, numbers 2-5 above go beyond quantifying the screen time, to making a normative recommendation. Anyone opposed to that recommendation, or to laying out the costs and benefits – say, an ed-tech vendor – might oppose the resolution for where it is headed, not for the short-term cost it imposes on the central office in conducting the audit and writing the report.
What happens next procedurally?
The resolution “sits” for public comment before discussion and potential vote at the next Board business meeting. The idea is that when they discuss it further, they will have the resolution as defended by the member who introduced it and obviously supports it and any feedback from the public.
But the public won’t know that the resolution is sitting if they weren’t watching the very end of the June 4 meeting or reading every line of BoardDocs. I did watch the meeting and I do hang out on BoardDocs, and I couldn’t find anything directing the public specifically how to submit a comment on a resolution. This is why people organize.
Pop quiz
Fill in the blank, WHEREAS or RESOLVED:
WHEREAS, it was super hot last week; and
WHEREAS, air conditioning lowers indoor temperatures; and
WHEREAS, air conditioning requires maintenance which costs money [no punctuation clue here]
____________, the Board is committed to ensuring everyone in our schools experiences physical and psychological safety within an inclusive and welcoming learning environment, which includes not passing out from the heat [no punctuation clue here]
RESOLVED, the capital improvement plan must provide resources for school air conditioning maintenance.
Answer key
I’d go with WHEREAS on this. It’s mostly from the strategic plan, which is already done, and it’s not such a leap to say passing out from the heat isn’t physically safe. (The part from the strategic plan may look familiar — it was a WHEREAS on the screentime audit resolution.)
Too bad money doesn’t grow on resolutions.
Extra credit
Read the Board of Education screen time audit resolution. I asked Tao what interested readers should do, and she suggested emailing all members of the Board individually, as well as the boe@ and boetestimony@ addresses (all @mcpsmd.org). (This is a correction to earlier address.)
If you want to advocate with the Schools Beyond Screens (SBS) campaign, join their MCPS chapter. If you want to advocate for less regulation on ed-tech, you could start your own campaign — or just free ride on the advocacy vendors are buying.
The revised MCPS cell phone regulation says high school students can have phones in class, they just can’t use them. That’s hard to enforce. Would this “airplane mode for schools” tech help? How much would it cost?
Exit ticket
Share your frequent, low-stakes feedback with me, either by replying to this email or submitting anonymously. I always welcome your story ideas, questions, suggestions, and corrections. And if you enjoyed this post, I’d be grateful if you share it (social media, listserv, group chat – or face to face!).