Fifteen minutes into the first meeting of New Hampshire's new Screen Time Task Force, Chris Motika stopped his presentation and asked how many members had glanced at a screen since he started talking. Nearly every hand went up.

That scene, from Ethan DeWitt's New Hampshire Bulletin story, captures where the school technology debate stands.

New Hampshire banned cellphones from bell to bell last summer. Now, the state has convened a 32-member panel of superintendents, principals, teachers—and one high school student—to determine what comes after the ban. The distraction did not disappear with phones. As Concord High School teacher Kim Bleier put it, "their one-to-one device was the new screen."

New survey data released today helps explain why restriction alone keeps falling short. Common Sense Media polled 1,017 teens and found that 70% use AI for schoolwork, The 74's Greg Toppo reports. Among those users, 44% have encountered an AI tool blocked on a school device or network. Fifty-nine percent of that group simply switched to a personal device with less oversight.

Former Education Secretary John King, now chancellor of SUNY, told The 74 that the answer runs through teaching practice: in-class writing, blue books and oral presentations that require students to demonstrate their own thinking.

Erin Mote of InnovateEDU makes the broader argument in Forbes. Pointing to Indonesia's device restrictions across 250,000 schools, she calls bans without the digital literacy, accountability and inclusive policymaking to support them "an illusion of control." Restrictions may buy time, but they do not teach young people how to navigate the technology waiting outside the school walls.

The same news cycle also brought new efforts focused on preparing students to use AI responsibly. As Julie Jargon reports in The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens with homework support, break reminders and stronger safeguards against emotional dependence. The company also announced a partnership with CodeAI focused on AI literacy. The focus continues to shift from keeping technology away from students to teaching them to question and use it.

Brookings' Rebecca Winthrop proposes a different lever: student AI councils that beta-test tools, help redesign assignments, and weigh in on procurement. As one student told her, "We should be able to review procurement contracts—it's our data."

Bleier has taught for 30 years, and she says New Hampshire's phone ban worked: Her students' attention came back. Now she is spending it on the fundamentals, teaching them again how to have a conversation and how to disagree without it going sideways.

— Thomas

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