School districts across the country have begun to pull back from the once-unquestionable push to put a laptop in every student’s hands. What started as a pandemic necessity has morphed into a source of regret. Test scores stagnated or fell. Attention spans shortened. And now administrators say enough.
In McPherson, Kan., middle schoolers turned in their personal Chromebooks at the end of 2025. The devices now sit on carts in classrooms, rolled out only when a teacher specifically needs them for a lesson. Students no longer lug the machines home each night. The shift came after years of observing faces buried in screens and minimal participation in live discussions.
“There’s no reason for a child to take that device home every day,” said Jeremy Davison, superintendent of Paw Paw Public Schools in Michigan. His district is expanding a program called Disconnect to Reconnect. It began two years ago by limiting phone use to lunch periods. Now it reaches Chromebooks too. Students check out laptops from carts for specific class activities and return them immediately after. The change lifts the daily burden of charging and carrying a $400 machine. More importantly, it forces intentional use.
But why the sudden reversal? Research has piled up. A study from the University of California, Irvine, found students assigned Chromebooks scored lower on standardized tests than peers who relied more on traditional methods. Michigan State University researchers linked heavy iPad use to weaker reading performance. Work from the University of Kansas pointed to similar declines when tablets dominated classroom time. Dr. Amy McCart, a professor at the University of Kansas, put it bluntly. “The evidence is clear that screens make students worse off.”
The Fortune article that first brought national attention to these shifts detailed actions in multiple states. North Carolina districts dropped one-to-one Chromebook programs after seeing test score drops. Michigan superintendents banned iPads from younger classrooms over screen-time worries. Kansas schools followed suit. The pattern repeats. What looked like progress during remote learning now appears to have exacted a steep price.
And the backlash isn’t limited to a few districts. At least 10 states, among them Kansas, Vermont and Virginia, have introduced bills to cap daily screen time or require evidence that digital tools improve outcomes before purchase. The New York Times reported on this “Chromebook remorse” in March, noting how the tech-heavy model that districts raced to adopt has lost favor. Parents complain of distracted kids. Teachers describe battles against off-task browsing and social media. Even students sometimes admit they miss paper.
McPherson Middle School’s move came four years after it first banned cellphones. The laptop decision followed. Principal and staff noticed the same problem the phones had created. “For quite a few years, their faces have been hidden behind a screen, and many of our kids don’t feel the need to participate in these discussions,” said Tracy Derhammer, principal at Paw Paw Middle School, describing a parallel experience in Michigan. Tammy Southworth, principal at the high school there, called the change exciting. Devices stay safe, charged and ready. Tech becomes a tool again, not the default.
The financial implications run deep. Districts spent billions on devices and management software during the pandemic. Now many face the cost of unwinding those contracts while still providing limited access for students who need it. Libraries in some North Carolina schools now lend Chromebooks for after-hours work. The goal is balance. Not zero screens. Just fewer of them during core instruction.
Critics of the new restrictions warn against overcorrection. Meredith Coffey, senior policy and operations associate at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, wrote in a recent commentary that while low-quality screen time poses real problems, coarse limits carry their own risks. “I’m no fan of unfettered screen time, but we should take these bills as a signal that the ed tech pendulum may be swinging back too far, too fast,” she argued in the Fordham Institute piece. She points out that arbitrary minute caps ignore whether a child is playing games or learning to code. Enforcement proves difficult. And some curricula, used in over 8,000 districts, assume digital access. Schools may struggle to print replacements or train teachers quickly enough.
Still, the momentum builds. Paw Paw leaders tie their program to a simple slogan: Every Interaction Matters. Reducing screen dependency, they say, creates space for conversation, hands-on work and genuine engagement. Behavioral issues tied to constant social media checks have decreased in early reports. Teachers report students look up more. They speak up more.
The debate reflects larger questions about childhood, attention and what schools should prioritize. Decades of research outside education already showed excessive screens harm sleep, focus and social development. Education simply took longer to absorb the lesson. Now districts act on data their own experiences confirm.
So what replaces the laptops? In many classrooms, it’s a return to paper, pencils, whiteboards and direct instruction. Some blend both approaches. A lesson on history might involve reading from a physical text, discussing in groups, then using a shared computer for targeted research. The key, administrators say, lies in purpose. Screens for what they do best. Human interaction for everything else.
Recent local coverage reinforces the trend. A WSBT report from this week highlighted Paw Paw’s expansion just days before the new school year. Parents in Massachusetts, according to a June MassLive article, push budgets toward books over more tablets. The conversation has gone national. And it shows few signs of fading.
School leaders once feared falling behind without technology. Now many fear falling behind because of it. The evidence, once ignored, has become impossible to dismiss. Test scores told the story. Student disengagement confirmed it. Districts respond by reclaiming the classroom from the glow of backlit displays. The experiment isn’t over. But its rules are changing.
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