Warning that young people “are drowning in technology,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, on Wednesday called on schools to stop issuing digital devices like iPads to children in preschool through second grade.
In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, Ms. Weingarten also urged elementary schools to avoid using AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Khan Academy's Khanmigo with children. And he called for new national privacy and security standards for artificial intelligence tools in all schools.
The message was part of a new campaign by the second-largest U.S. teachers union to prioritize active, hands-on learning and human relationships in classrooms while reducing school reliance on digital devices. Weingarten said she was galvanized by a talk she had heard from Jonathan Haidt, the author of “The Anxious Generation,” about how screens can hook children, hindering socialization and critical thinking.
“If we don't find a way to address this from an educational perspective, I'm afraid we will lose a generation of children,” Weingarten said in a telephone interview. “The work of teaching and learning in the early grades should be done without AI”
The union's effort reflects a backlash among parents and educators against the heavy use of school-provided laptops and apps. Some parents and nonprofit children's groups are also pushing back against campaigns by tech giants like Google and OpenAI to spread their artificial intelligence products in schools.
Last month, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest public school system in the United States, said it would eliminate school devices such as tablets for younger students, in addition to introducing screen time limits for each grade. Separately, dozens of parents and health groups called for a five-year pause on the use of generative AI products like Gemini and ChatGPT in schools.
In his speech Wednesday, Weingarten laid out a plan to reorient public education toward human capabilities and student well-being. She called it “a hands-on strategy with devices down, eyes up.”
In the age of AI, he said, skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking and applying ethics have become more important. However, he noted, “instead of solving a challenge, students can turn to an AI chatbot for an effortless response.”
Weingarten also criticized the Trump administration's ties to technology companies, suggesting that the White House's industrial relations had led to a “laissez-faire approach to addressing the harms of technology.” He called for an independent research consortium to study the impacts of AI, screens and other technologies on students.
Ms. Weingarten's warning comes nearly a year after the union announced it was starting a National AI Instruction Academy for teachers, backed by $23 million from Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic. At the time, he said industry involvement would help train teachers and give them more say in how companies shape AI tools for schools.
Some union members criticized the deal, saying the partnerships undermine teachers' autonomy over AI.
This week, Ms. Weingarten said the union was negotiating security and privacy standards for the use of AI in schools with “our partners in AI academia,” and that Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic had agreed in principle to those standards.
“We are being transparent,” Weingarten said, adding that he preferred the federal government and state legislatures, not unions, regulate AI safety. He added: “We are willing to withdraw from the funding we receive here if we don't achieve security and privacy.”
