We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
The whole world has stretched at the seams, changing its shape to fit innumerable new aspects of life brought by digital technology. Many industries have changed; young students now know nothing else. Every high schooler today was born after the advent of the Iphone.
Old-school policy concerns are still relevant (like high-quality instruction, teacher training, and chronic absenteeism) but they’re in a fundamentally new landscape. Concerns about boring lectures and “teaching to the test” appear paltry next to concerns about whether students are actually engaging with either lecture or text.
Let’s put some shape on this shift. A recent Fordham Institute study authored by Bryan Fitzpatrick studied a nationally representative sample of high schoolers. The findings of the study are nothing new or surprising, but taken as a whole, they can paint a picture of what high school is now like. (The study is worth combing through in detail, but I’ll be using generalities in my analysis below.)
The old debate about whether teachers should be the “sage on the stage” or the “guide on the side” is dead. The tech on the desk rules. Most students spend half to three-quarters of their day on a school-issued device, like a Chromebook. Those students aren’t on task; they’re easily navigating past school firewalls and accessing chats, games, and shops. (In fact, about one in five surveys were filled out during school hours!) Personal device restrictions (like cell phone bans) help, but aren’t a panacea. Of course, this off-task behavior includes rampant AI use by poor-performing and high-performing students alike.
Clear-eyed learning is subverted by blue-light tech. A majority of students report that most students are using AI illicitly and routinely, using it to complete assignments quickly and get good grades. Homework, a majority of students say, “has become meaningless because nearly everyone uses AI.” Teachers are viewed by a high minority of respondents (48 percent) as unable to design assignments that AI can’t complete.
With cheating easier than ever, grades now seem to be a bit of a black box. Almost one in three students get partial credit for assignments they didn’t turn in, and a vast majority of students can retake assessments at least once to improve their grade. Unsurprisingly, 57 percent of students self-reported that they earn all A’s or mostly A’s — even about one in three students who earned a score between 16-19 on the ACT (on the bottom half of the national score distribution) reported that they earned all A’s.
Let’s take a breather and assess: Our students, emboldened by school-issued devices and AI, are spending the majority of their day wasting a lot of time, learning very little, and earning grades that aren’t reflective of their actual performance. Mike Petrilli has facetiously called this the “bull-shittification” of the American high school. He’s not wrong, but the good news is that a little change can go a long way.
What can districts do?
There are three clear problems facing many high schools: 1) too much institutional trust in other actors (firewalls and personal student moderation) for mitigating off-task digital behavior 2) a systemic lack of grade integrity and 3) a widespread student disbelief that real learning is rewarded.
Districts will need to change course. Start with a healthy dose of cynicism: don’t trust Big Tech, and don’t trust students. Districts need to be in charge.
District tech teams can (and should) put up firewalls, ban Youtube, cut off social media, disable AI, and do all they can to digitally limit off-task behavior. But to be clear, if all students really needed were digital textbooks, Google would sell school Kindles, not school Chromebooks. Integration with Google Classroom, Google Search, and other Google AI products allows young students to be young consumers, forming digital habits that will last through adulthood. The Chromebook is a product, being sold at a low price in order to create a market for more products. Districts should not assume that Google is on their side in the fight against off-task behavior.
Similarly, districts shouldn’t assume that students will stay on-task when they’re given the opportunity to be off-task. (This is a well-known part of childhood.) Districts should assume that within any situation where 30 students are on a Chromebook with one teacher, there’s at least one distracting, enticing chat conversation going on. Teachers are the most important part of a child’s education. They should be teaching, not overseeing a nebulous digital research project.
Tech should be reframed by districts from the portal of all learning to a tool used when absolutely necessary. Districts can follow Los Angeles and heavily limit screen time in classes, or they can start with other policies that naturally curb digital use. Districts should consider using practical methods to add friction to tech use, like switching away from 1:1 computers toward a classroom Chromebook cart. Usage should be approved grade-by-grade. (Do kindergarteners truly need a personal Chromebook?) School board members should ask their tech team to present data that shows how often students are using their school devices, and should create thoughtful ed-tech policies.
The most effective immediate balm for all three problems I’ve mentioned above is the institution of written, oral, or Blue Book assessments. Pen-and-paper assessments allow students to showcase what they actually know and removes any ability to digitally cheat.
Teachers, used to easily-graded Google Classroom assessments, may voice concern that these types of assessments are an administrative burden. However, assignment weight should shift in response to prejudice formal assessments, with homework as a completion grade. Fewer, higher-quality assessments, coupled with a clear need to pay attention in class, could make life easier and learning better for teachers and students alike. (This shift could find common ground between all types of grading reform proponents.) It should go without saying that policies containing no zeroes and endless retakes are often farcical in practice, and students know it.
Students often complain that their work isn’t engaging, and there’s no surprise there. Being asked to read a digital textbook, fill out (or cheat on) a digital quiz, and then sit quietly surfing the web until the rest of the class is finished is quite boring. If districts put laptops into bags and the sage back on the stage (at least for some of the time) students would respond. If students see that their academic material is clearly presented by an actual person, their homework builds the skills needed for the exam, and that there’s no way to cheat on an exam, they will begin to believe that real learning is rewarded.
Bryan Fitzpatrick offers five high-quality recommendations, some of which I’ve argued a variation of above. They are: 1) Reduce the amount of time students spend on devices. 2) Place greater reliance on in-class, paper-and-pencil and oral exams, and reorient outside-of-class work around preparing for these exams. 3) Make grading expectations school-wide and explicit by eliminating routine exam retakes and enforcing meaningful consequences for late work. 4) Ensure that the firewalls on school-issued devices work and proactively use settings that inhibit off-task technology use. 5) Adopt stricter bans on cell phones and other personal devices.
The world has shifted, and education has to shift with it. The good news for districts is that the bar is currently low. Any amount of thoughtfulness and institutional rigor surrounding the process of learning, ed-tech, and grade reform will go a long way.