Why Los Angeles schools moved so quickly to limit screen use

School board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin explains what galvanized action — and what’s holding schools back from going further

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Why did you vote to scale back and reassess tech use in Los Angeles schools?

I actually helped to draft the language. Part of it was my own personal experience. I have a 3-and-a-half year old who goes to LAUSD preschool, and I have a 17-month old. So as a mom of young children, I could see on a daily basis how interested they are in TVs and phones and computers. I instinctively have a reaction to keep them away from it. 

Professionally, I could see the use of devices being distracting when the teacher thinks students are working on an assignment. I do lots of classroom observations, and I just felt like kids were less engaged in the material and less verbal about their learning. 

Plus [fellow board member] Nick Melvoin and I read “The Anxious Generation,” and we’re thinking, ‘What can we do?’ 

Kudos to Schools Beyond Screens. They started coming last December, and I met with them. They were relentless. What was powerful about their advocacy was it struck a chord with those of us who were parents. It was a parent-to-parent connection.

I don’t want to stereotype, but typically when I’ve encountered tech-skeptical parents, they’ve been more middle- and upper-class families. Have you heard a lot of parental discontent from your lower-income schools?

I don’t think it’s a stereotype. I think it is a function of having free time, access, and the ability to come downtown. You’re not wrong in terms of who I was hearing it from, but just because we’re not hearing it [from others] doesn’t mean it’s not important. 

Do you have a sense of how prevalent screen use is in L.A. schools?

Preliminary numbers indicated that daily screen time for elementary students was between 30 and 50 minutes a day, and then for middle and high school, somewhere around like 90 to 120 minutes a day. That might be a low estimate. 

Do you think scaling back the use of screens in LAUSD will improve academic outcomes? 

I hope that it will, but that for me wasn’t the first goal. My initial interest was for the student interaction around how you process learning, and building on the social-emotional emphasis that we’ve had with reducing the use of cellphones and screens generally. [The Los Angeles board implemented a ban on students’ personal phone use during the school day last year.]

This is intended as a limit, not just a friendly suggestion, right?

Our first draft said, consider eliminating the use of one-to-one devices in early years. Parents pushed us and said: Don’t consider it. Just do it. Those of us who had small kids were like, okay of course.

The rule is no one-to-one devices until second grade. There will be some exceptions for assessments that we’re still figuring out. Third grade is the first year of testing, and we wouldn’t want that to be the first time kids are getting exposed to devices.

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E há os cépticos (comodistas, gente do sofá, gente que fica no banco, etc), como eu, que detestam ser arregimentados na base da adesão pouco crítica a discursos alarmistas como os daquela malta que diz uma coisa e, meses depois, verificando-se o erro, dizem que sempre disseram o que nunca disseram e voltam a escrever coisas preguiçosas, todas baralhadas, mas que apelam a quem gosta de ser apelado. Eu aconselharia chá de valeriana, para acalmar.e combater as insónias.

Resumindo… foi uma etapa. Cumprida dentro das (minhas) baixas expectativas. Com gente boa e generosa, mas também alguma que faz profissão de uma “luta” que é pela manutenção de um certo status quo. Espero que tanta energia não se esgote quando ela for mesmo mais necessária.

Desculpem lá, se a prosa é menos agradável a certas sensibilidades, mas frankly my dear, é que I don’t give a damm.

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