The Trump administration is looking for ways to crack down on the enormous amount of screen time children are exposed to in school — a phenomenon that has been subsidized heavily by the federal government for years.
Every other week, it seems, Americans hear about more negative, often long-term effects of children being placed in front of smart phones or other screens, ranging from stunted learning and depression, to weight gain and body dysmorphia.
Arielle Roth, the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, and Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), told The Federalist in an interview that her office is going to look into how the government has been exacerbating the problem through policies that push more in-school instruction and homework toward children spending countless hours on screens.
“Much of policy makers’ focus has been on banning cell phones in schools, and while that’s important, it only scratches the surface of what parents are worried about. When you talk to most parents, their concern isn’t just cell phones — it’s that their children are on school laptops and devices for large portions of the school day, starting at very young ages,” Roth said. “I think we should be asking about what’s driving these trends. That includes looking at how federal programs and funding streams may be accelerating excessive screen use in the classroom.”
Roth, as head of NTIA, is the chief advisor to the president on telecommunications policy.
According to Roth, elementary and middle school students are surveyed as spending three or more hours per day on school devices. While many school districts are giving children laptops in first and second grade, some introduce kindergarteners to tablets.
In a speech Tuesday afternoon outlining the issue, Roth will announce a listening session so that parents, teachers, students, and experts can have input on how federal policy on technology use in schools is impacting children, and how the Trump administration can start cleaning up the mess that has been around for some time, but was made dramatically worse by the school lockdown and online education protocols ushered in during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s fair to ask whether some federal programs, including certain [American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)]-funded initiatives, had the effect — intended or not — of prolonging school closures during COVID,” Roth told The Federalist.
But her speech, which was obtained by The Federalist, notes that “Even if every cell phone disappeared tomorrow, the core issue would remain,” adding, “even though the country has long since moved past lockdowns, many of the habits and influences of that period remain: students tethered to devices, digital platform-based lesson plans, and the expansion of technology in learning as a default.”
While recognizing that a certain level of technology use is necessary in school, and that it is an unavoidable reality in the real world, Roth’s speech notes the stark contrast between learning how to use technology and having schools and teachers rely on it for instruction across the board.
“When screen time becomes the default for instruction, downtime, and homework, instead of a targeted and intentional tool, it displaces the things children need most: reading, writing, physical and creative play, hands-on learning, and face-to-face interaction,” the speech states. “Moreover, security and filters are rarely foolproof. Many teachers report that students are playing games, instant messaging, or accessing inappropriate content during school hours, on school-issued devices.”
Parents have started to notice that their children’s time at school has been totally overrun with screentime, as technology has started to “replace the teacher,” as the Daily Caller reported.
Several parents detailed to that outlet how iPad applications are replacing real instruction, including for struggling children who would normally need one-on-one tutoring. Other problems include access to artificial intelligence like ChatGPT which finds them the answer instantly, and children’s mood swings when screens are taken away.
Roth, a mother of six, describes the “addictive pull of screen time” in her speech, adding that legislators and policymakers are often fed talking points about how technology is the “backbone of modern education” without really questioning if that’s even true.
“For years, advocates have framed every request for more broadband or tech funding in schools as helping kids. Policymakers have rarely probed that underlying assumption,” she told The Federalist. “My concern is that federal programs designed to expand technology use in schools may not always align with what’s best for children’s education or well-being. We should be honest about whether these programs primarily help students — or whether they’re being run in the interests of the tech companies that ultimately benefit from the subsidies.”
The federal government has spent billions of dollars on expanding internet access in bizarre ways, including Wi-Fi on school buses — one of many things sold to policymakers as a way to “‘close the homework gap’ and ‘level the playing field’ for low-income students,” her speech states.
“More recently, under the Biden Administration, the [Federal Communications Commission (FCC)] — under Chairwoman [Jessica] Rosenworcel — expanded its authority to subsidize Wi-Fi on school buses and hotspots for students, claiming it would help kids do homework,” Roth told The Federalist. “But any parent — and anyone who’s ever been on a school bus — knows that’s not what kids are doing on a school bus with Wi-Fi.”
“Somebody stood to benefit from the school bus Wi-Fi subsidy, but it’s not children,” she added.
Roth noted that even when schools invest heavily in tech that the worst performing students are the low-income students.
The push to federally force children on screens actually dates back to the Obama administration, which partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to require that Common Core testing be administered on computers.
That requirement essentially forced all public schools to have a computer for every single student in order to buy access to other federal education funding, but it also ensured that America’s students would become addicted to screens from an early age, and allow tech companies to track their data in perpetuity.
It would not come as a surprise to anyone that the increase in technology at school has, if anything, had a negative effect, given the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores showing high school math and reading scores at the lowest levels on record.
According to a list of questions obtained by The Federalist, Roth’s goal is to acquire information on the consequences of excessive screen time for children, the types of ed tech commonly used in schools, how schools make procurement decisions, what the market is, how schools are vetting ed tech, the source of funding for use and development of ed tech, and how those sources are affecting that tech, among many other things.
She said her office is “uniquely situated” to coordinate a cross-government review of ed tech.
“We will also be looking closely at how federal subsidies and connectivity targets may be pushing schools toward more device use — often without asking whether it helps children learn. We’ve all heard the shiny promises,” her speech states. “Ed tech platforms will automatically capture and analyze student data to improve instruction, that gamified apps will transform engagement, that teachers can use tablets for classroom management and improving behavior, and that connected devices will enable ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning. Tech companies — chasing taxpayer dollars — say all this and more to close a deal. But our students are worth more than their sales pitch.”
The government is probably in need of a new child online safety review, too, as the Biden administration’s “online health and safety for children” report was written by a task force including former Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel (Richard) Levine, a man who claims to be a woman and has insisted that young children be chemically castrated and undergo genital mutilation surgeries in order to “affirm” claims about being the opposite sex from what they actually are.
That fact alone makes it untrustworthy.
NTIA’s public listening session is set for Dec. 10, 2025 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Eastern.
Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.
