Standing Athwart the Ed-Tech Revolution

Bulletin boards and shelves of worn paperbacks still line the walls of American classrooms, but virtually every surface now holds a charging station or a mounted screen. Students sit in rows, faces illuminated by the blue glow of their district-issued tablets. Teachers move among desks, but their primary interactions with students happen through “learning-management systems” where they monitor progress in real time.

In some sense, students today are getting a more “personalized” education than ever before—content is matched to their pace and learning style, which digital platforms measure more precisely than human teachers ever could. Adaptive software offers “personalized learning paths,” which adjust math problems or language lessons based on past performance. Yet many educators can’t shake the impression that technology has fundamentally warped the role of the teacher, and the quality and purpose of education. When students face the screen, the distinctive pedagogical qualities of the teacher fade into the background. Algorithms have recast teachers as consultants, facilitators, managers of classrooms that are no longer meaningfully their own. The above is not a depiction of computer class; it’s just class, in 2025.

In the last 30 years or so, America’s classrooms have undergone a quiet revolution. This didn’t happen overnight; nor did it result from a single policy decision. It emerged from a perfect storm of good intentions, corporate interests, and perverse incentives that took root in the 1990s. Progressive state governments, concerned about preparing students for an increasingly digital world, partnered with NGOs and technology companies to develop curricula around “digital citizenship.” In those days, there was a clear line between “computer class,” with its focus on typing and basic software skills, and the rest of the curriculum. Students would spend an hour learning simple programs via screen, then return to traditional instruction for core subjects. That boundary began to blur in the 2000s as “ed-tech” companies proliferated, promising to change how students learn everything from multiplication to Shakespeare. Federal grants incentivized schools to adopt these digital tools, while a growing consulting industry convinced administrators that staying competitive meant staying digital. By the late 2010s, what had started as an admirable goal—ensuring that students could navigate the emerging Internet age—became a Trojan horse through which technology companies captured the infrastructure of American education.