硅谷的家长们希望他们参与研发的技术从他们孩子的学校中消失

科技发达地区的公立和私立学校都在限制课堂上使用科技产品。但低收入地区的学校能否效仿呢？

旧金山的罗宾·布勒

2026年10月27日星期二

德国人吉尔醒着的大部分时间都花在看屏幕上。自2015年搬到旧金山湾区以来，这位软件工程师一直在初创公司和巨头公司之间辗转，其中包括Netflix、Facebook和GitHub。

但对于女儿维多利亚的教育，他希望她能有不同的体验，让他的“孩子能够像个孩子一样”。

吉尔和妻子把维多利亚送进了旧金山华德福学校，这是一所注重自然游戏教育的私立学校。如今维多利亚上四年级了，她的校园生活完全没有电子屏幕。班上的同学不用电脑，而是手工装订书籍。

这种体验价格不菲。这所学校位于旧金山富裕的太平洋高地社区，距离人工智能巨头安人智公司总部仅两英里，幼儿园学费每年高达4万美元；高中学费接近6万美元。但该项目非常受欢迎。

这看似矛盾，但近年来，硅谷许多高薪科技工作者为了让孩子远离他们参与开发的平台，不惜支付高额费用。旧金山华德福学校的执行董事劳伦·史密斯表示，该校幼儿入学申请人数显著增长，而许多新晋父母都来自科技行业。

如今，该地区的家长们正努力推动公立学校改革，其目标已从私立学校扩展到公立学区。在公立学校，屏幕已成为课堂生活中无处不在的一部分。加州科技中心城市如山景城、圣马特奥等地的家长们希望公立学校能够重新重视人际互动，而非屏幕时间，就像旧金山华德福学校那样。他们正在积极组织起来，并取得了一些成效，一些公立学校已经开始禁止学生使用手机，或减少计算机化考试和作业的使用。

随着越来越多的证据表明社交媒体和其他平台对青少年造成危害——法院也开始认同这一点——家长和政府开始重新评估孩子与科技的关系及其在教育中的作用。纽约市和洛杉矶等美国主要学区最近都采取了限制科技应用的措施。其他国家的家长也越来越关注科技对教育的渗透。

“如今人们对这个问题的关注度比几年前高得多，”美国倡导组织 Fairplay 的活动主管大卫·莫纳汉 (David Monahan) 说，该组织致力于限制儿童使用电子屏幕。

硅谷的家长们为这场争论带来了许多其他社区所不具备的优势：他们对科技行业的第一手了解。据圣马特奥联合高中学区董事会成员詹妮弗·雅各布森透露，去年该学区成立了一个工作组，专门研究人工智能在学校中的作用。该工作组的志愿者成员中至少有两名来自大型科 技公司，其中一人就职于谷歌的人工智能部门。

“这些专业人士比普通社区成员更了解这些产品，”雅各布森说。“他们能够更全面地了解这些产品的发展方向及其对教育的潜在影响。”

许多美国公立学校的家长得知电子屏幕这么早就进入课堂后都感到非常失望。

吉莉安·科隆斯基是圣马特奥的一位作家，当她五岁的女儿被学校送回家一台Chromebook电脑练习数学时，她感到非常震惊。“我当时就想，什么？！她才上幼儿园！”科隆斯基回忆道。

坎迪斯·魏是帕洛阿尔托的一名大学升学顾问，她同样震惊地发现，她上幼儿园的儿子竟然在课堂上使用电子屏幕，而且几乎没有任何监管。这促使她深入调查当地高中的相关规定。“YouTube没有被禁，生成式人工智能也没有被禁。这简直是玩忽职守，”她说，“我家里不允许这样做，为什么学校却允许呢？”

教育科技在早期被视为一个更加公平、普及的数字化未来的标志。疫情使其成为远程学习的重要组成部分，许多工具在学生重返课堂后仍然继续使用。据《纽约时报》调查显示，到2025年，99%的受访教师表示他们的学生已获得学校发放的设备，81%的教师表示他们的学校从幼儿园就开始为学生提供屏幕。

但专家和越来越多的家长都对科技在日常学习中的无处不在感到担忧。美国一半的青少年每天花在屏幕上的时间超过四个小时，这还不包括学校作业时间。费尔普莱的莫纳汉认为，课堂上的屏幕时间正在加剧这种趋势。“如果学生在老师的默许下，花几个小时盯着屏幕，我们究竟在学校里培养什么样的习惯呢？”他问道。

研究表明，学生用笔和纸学习的知识比在屏幕上学习的知识更容易记住。批评者还指出，过度使用教育技术会取代，或者至少会阻碍对情感学习至关重要的师生关系，并剥夺促进学习的积极探索过程。

“作为一个人，你更有可能为你爱的老师或你爱的父母付出努力，而不是为一台不会真正给你爱的电脑付出努力，”无党派教育研究非营利组织 WestEd 的学习科学与技术高级主管 Yvonne Kao 解释说。

高指出，美国各学区对技术的使用情况差异很大。她提到，她听说一些农村学区缺乏人员来审核技术或跟上采购技术的最佳实践。

硅谷的父母处境不同：“我认为，身处科技环境会让你对科技更加精通，”高说。“你会更清楚科技的利弊，从而更好地把握其中的平衡点。”

这使得许多人转向了私立学校。不受州和地方官僚机构的束缚，加州的私立学校能够更快地改变方向，可以自由制定限制技术应用的政策，并且有更多资金用于教师而非应用程序。

魏女士是家长权益倡导组织“超越屏幕的学校”（Schools Beyond Screens）当地分会的创始人。她说，她听到越来越多的家长反映，课堂上的屏幕时间是他们离开公立学校的一个越来越普遍的原因。“有些家长来找我，他们之前考虑过（我们这所公立学校），参观过学校，看到孩子们都在玩电子屏幕，然后就说，‘看来我得把孩子转到私立学校了，’”她说道。

但这激励了像她一样的其他人，敦促公立学区对那些与学校签订数百万美元合同的公司进行严格审查，并要求他们提供证据证明其产品能够提升学习效果。“这意味着要了解他们希望这项技术实现的具体成果，以及如果未能达到预期效果，他们的应对方案是什么，”科隆斯基说道，她的丈夫在一家人工智能公司工作。“很多公司的宣传都非常吸引人，但实际操作起来却并非如此。”

在家长们的压力下，圣马特奥的公立学校已停止向幼儿园至二年级的学生发放Chromebook笔记本电脑，高中生也被全面禁止携带手机。在山景城，学校正在逐步停止使用i-Ready——这是一款在加州多个学区广泛使用的自适应阅读和数学程序，但因课程重复性高而饱受诟病，并被指控未经学生同意就分享学生数据。 与此同时，帕洛阿尔托的公立学校则禁止使用一种在邻近的硅谷研发的技术—— “智能”眼镜。

虽然以人为本学习的支持者对取得的进展感到鼓舞，但他们担心资源较少的地区将会落后，只能继续使用较富裕的地区正在放弃的数字学习工具。

布朗大学教育政策中心主任乔恩·瓦兰特表示，“科技反弹”影响广泛，各个收入阶层的家长都希望孩子接受高质量的人际互动教育。区别在于谁能为此买单。瓦兰特解释说，教职工工资是任何学校最大的开支：“私立学校成本高昂的原因在于，学校里有很多成年人……当预算紧张时，用技术取代人的诱惑就尤其难以抵挡。”

这种差距只会越来越大：特朗普政府大力支持择校计划，该计划通过代金券或教育储蓄账户，将原本用于子女教育的部分或全部公共资金提供给家庭，用于私立学校教育。这意味着，当家长将孩子从公立学校转入私立学校时，他们也带走了这笔资金。

瓦兰特说：“我担心这项技术的推广在不同社区之间会存在很大的不公平现象。最终我们看到的是，即使父母不希望他们这样做，低收入地区的孩子们却发现自己花在屏幕上的时间要多得多。”

旧金山华德福学校为无力承担学费的家庭提供经济援助。但斯坦福大学教育研究生院教授安特罗·加西亚也担心，在某些地区，私立学校是实现无屏幕教育的唯一途径，而每个选择离开公立学校的学生都会带走一部分教育经费。“这意味着教师人数减少，如果学校关闭，学生通勤时间可能会更长，班级规模也会更大，”加西亚解释道。

加西亚认为，那些有能力离开公立学校的家长，也最有能力改变其他孩子的公立学校现状。“他们拥有社会资本和资源，而且他们可能也了解如何在官僚体系中运作，”他说。

Silicon Valley parents want the tech they help build out of their children’s schools

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Private schools are not bound by bureaucracy, and can swiftly change policy directions. Illustration: Eleanor Davis/The Guardian

Both private and public schools in tech regions are limiting the use of tech in classrooms. But will low-income districts be able to follow suit?

Robin Buller in San Francisco

Tue 27 Oct 2026 12.00 GMT

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German Gil spends most of his waking hours looking at screens. Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, the software engineer has bounced between start-ups and giants including Netflix, Facebook and GitHub.

But when it came to the education of his daughter, Victoria, he wanted her to have a different experience, one in which his “kid could be a kid”.

Gil and his wife enrolled Victoria at the San Francisco Waldorf school, a private school built around nature-based play. Now in fourth grade, Victoria spends her school days free of screens. Instead of working on Chromebooks, the students in her class are binding books by hand.

This sort of experience doesn’t come cheap. Kindergarten tuition at the school, which sits in San Francisco’s affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood, just two miles from the headquarters of AI giant Anthropic, runs $40,000 a year; high school, close to $60,000. But the program is intensely popular.

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It may seem a contradiction, but in the past years, many well-paid tech workers in Silicon Valley have paid a premium to keep their children away from the platforms they help build. Applications for early childhood enrollment at San Francisco Waldorf have grown notably, according to the school’s executive director, Lauren Smith, and many of the new parents work in tech.

Now, parents in the region are pushing for changes beyond private school campuses to public districts, where screens have become a ubiquitous part of life in the classroom. Parents in California tech enclaves such as Mountain View, San Mateo and others want public schools to re-embrace the emphasis on human connection over screen time that schools like San Francisco Waldorf offer. They are organizing, and they are making a dent, with some public schools banning phones or rolling back their use of computer-based tests and assignments.

As evidence mounts of the damage social media and other platforms do to young people – and as courts have begun to agree – parents, and governments, have started to re-evaluate kids’ relationship with tech, and its role in education. Major US school districts such as New York City and Los Angeles have recently embraced tech rollbacks. Parents in other countries, too, are increasingly scrutinizing tech’s encroachment into education.

“There is much more buzz around this today than there was a few years ago,” said David Monahan, campaign director of Fairplay, a US advocacy organization fighting to limit screen use among children.

Silicon Valley parents bring something to this fight that many other communities don’t have: firsthand knowledge of the industry. When San Mateo union high school district put together a taskforce last year to examine the role of AI in schools, at least two of its volunteer members worked at large tech companies, including one in Google’s AI division, according to Jennifer Jacobsen, a school board trustee.

“These professionals know more than the average community member about the products,” Jacobsen said. “They can see a longer runway of where these products are headed and their potential impact on education.”

Many American public-school parents are dismayed to learn how early screens enter the classroom.

Jillian Kolonski, a writer in San Mateo, was stunned when her five-year-old daughter was sent home with a Chromebook for math practice. “I was like, what?! She’s in kindergarten!” Kolonski recalled.

Candice Wei, a Palo Alto college counselor, was similarly shocked to learn that her kindergarten-age son was using screens in class with few guardrails. It prompted her to dig deeper into what local high schools allow. “YouTube isn’t banned. Generative AI isn’t banned. It’s almost criminally negligent,” she said. “I don’t allow this in my house. Why is it allowed in schools?”

In its early days, ed tech was viewed as a sign of a more equitable and accessible digital future. The pandemic made it an essential part of remote learning, and many tools stayed once students returned to classrooms. In 2025, 99% of school teachers surveyed by the New York Times said that their students received school-issued devices, and 81% said that their school gives students screens by kindergarten.

But experts, and a growing number of parents, are worried about the omnipresence of tech in day to day learning. Half of US teens spend four or more hours a day on screens, not counting schoolwork. Monahan, of Fairplay, sees classroom screen time as reinforcing those trends. “What sorts of habits are we fostering at school if students spend hours staring at screens with the seal of approval of their teacher?” he asked.

Research suggests that students retain what they learn with pen and paper better than what they learn on screens. Critics also say excessive ed tech replaces, or at least stunts, the student–teacher bond that is critical to emotional learning and strips away the productive struggle that fosters learning.

“You as a human being are much more likely to put in effort for a teacher you love or a parent you love than for a computer that is not really going to give you love,” explained Yvonne Kao, senior director of learning sciences and technology at the nonpartisan educational research non-profit WestEd.

Kao points out that the use of technology can vary widely across US school districts. She describes hearing about rural districts that lack the staff to vet technology or keep up with best practices for buying it.

Silicon Valley parents are in a different position: “There’s a savviness around tech that I think you acquire from being immersed in the tech environment,” Kao said. “You know better what it is good for and what it is bad for, and you can kind of try to thread the needle.”

It’s pushed many in the arms of private schools. Unbound by state and local bureaucracy, private schools in California are able to more quickly change direction, are free to enact policies that limit tech and have more money to spend on teachers instead of apps.

Wei, who started her local chapter of parent advocacy group Schools Beyond Screens, said classroom screen time is an increasingly common cause for leaving the public system that she hears about. “I’ve been approached by parents who considered [our public school], toured it, saw kids on screens, and were like, ‘I guess I’m going private,’” she said.

But it has motivated others like her to push public school districts to vet the companies landing multimillion-dollar contracts with schools and to demand proof that their products improve on learning. “That means asking for data about what specific outcomes they’re looking for that this tech is supposed to help with, and knowing what the plan is if they aren’t seeing those outcomes,” said Kolonski, whose husband works for an AI company. “A lot of these companies have really sexy pitches, but then on the ground, the work doesn’t quite bear out.”

Amid pressure from parents, public schools in San Mateo have stopped sending Chromebooks home with students in kindergarten through second grade, and high schoolers are subject to a blanket ban on cell phones. In Mountain View, schools are moving away from using i-Ready, an adaptive reading and math program used in school districts across California that has drawn criticism for repetitive lessons and been accused of sharing students’ data without consent. Palo Alto public schools, meanwhile, have prohibited the use of a technology developed just next door in Silicon Valley: “smart” glasses.

While proponents of human-centered learning are heartened by the progress, they are concerned that less-resourced districts will be left behind, stuck with the digital learning tools wealthier ones are abandoning.

The “techlash” is broad, said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy, and parents across income levels want the same thing – high-quality, human-to-human education – for their kids. The difference is who can pay for it. Staff salaries are the biggest expense at any school, Valant explained: “The reason [private schools] cost a lot of money is that they have a lot of adults in those buildings … It’s when budgets get tight that the temptation to replace people with technology is especially hard to resist.”

The gap could only widen: the Trump administration has thrown its weight behind school choice programs, which give families some or all of the public money that would have been spent on their child’s education through vouchers or education savings accounts to use on private schooling. It means that when parents take their children our of public schools and into the private system, they take the funding with them.

“I am worried about this technology rolling out in ways that are very unequal across communities,” Valant said. “What we end up seeing is it’s the kids who are in the lowest income areas that find themselves spending a whole lot more time on screens, even if their parents don’t want them to be.”

San Francisco Waldorf offers financial aid to families who can’t afford the price tag. But Antero Garcia, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, too, worries that in some regions private schools are the only route to a screen-free education, and that every student who opts out of public school takes funding with them. “What that looks like is fewer teachers, maybe a longer commute if a school were to close, and larger class sizes,” explained Garcia.

The parents with the means to leave, Garcia argues, are also the ones best equipped to change public schools for everyone else. “They have the social capital and resources, and they probably understand how to work within the bureaucratic system,” he said.