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Neuroscientist Blames Silicon Valley for Plunging US Test Scores
Jared Cooney Horvath argues that a false narrative about broken schools led to a costly edtech expansion that has weakened learning, with Utah data showing a decade-long decline in reading and math scores.
American schools were not failing when technology companies began pushing computers into classrooms, according to neuroscientist and former teacher Jared Cooney Horvath. In his new book, The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning—and How to Help Them Thrive Again, Horvath argues that a false narrative about a broken education system was used to sell schools on educational technology that has since harmed student learning.
Horvath points to standardized testing data from Utah, where reading and math scores for fourth- and eighth-graders had been rising for years before entering a steady downturn. He noticed that the inflection point coincided with the implementation of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence, the state's first computer-adaptive test. Before 2014, computers were peripheral in schools, Horvath said. After 2014, every school needed digital infrastructure to administer the state assessment.
That pattern is not unique to Utah. Horvath testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation earlier this year, telling lawmakers that the decline in test scores is part of a global trend tied to the rise of easy access to computers and tablets in classrooms. He cited data from the Program for International Student Assessment, which tests 15-year-olds around the world, showing that more time spent on screens was associated with worse scores.
For the first time in modern history, Horvath said, today's generation has failed to outperform their parents on standardized assessments. He described Gen Z as the first generation to be less cognitively capable than its predecessors, arguing that the technology's impact extends beyond test scores to the cognitive abilities those tests are meant to measure.
The push for edtech began in 2002, when Maine became the first state to implement a statewide laptop program in some elementary and middle schools. The Maine Learning Technology Initiative distributed 17,000 Apple laptops to seventh-graders across 243 schools in its first year. By 2016, 66,000 Maine students had laptops and tablets. By 2024, the United States had spent more than $30 billion putting screens in classrooms, with school districts negotiating discounted deals to buy technology.
Horvath argues that these deals helped some technology giants find footing after rocky product launches, particularly Google. After the shaky rollout of its Chromebook, the low-cost computers with free Google apps found their way into schools and by 2017 accounted for more than half of digital devices sent to schools. Horvath claimed Google sold the laptops to schools to help recoup costs on the product. Google did not respond to a request for comment.
The expansion of edtech was accompanied by a narrative that education was broken and computers could provide adaptability to students' differing learning needs, Horvath said. With knowledge at their fingertips, students could be empowered to learn on their own. But Horvath contends this was an attempt to solve a problem that did not exist. At the turn of the century, achievement gaps across race and gender were closing and test scores were rising, he said.
«Everything was looking good,» Horvath said. «So by what argument were they saying education was broken? There was no argument. They were just making it up to try and get people fomented to say, 'I guess we need a new tool in there.'»
The history of classroom technology reveals criticisms that go back nearly a century. In the 1950s, behaviorist B.F. Skinner debuted his version of a teaching machine, based on a 1924 invention by Ohio State University psychology professor Sidney Pressey. The device presented questions on paper, and students pressed keys to indicate the correct answer before another question appeared. Both Pressey and Skinner struggled to implement the technology in schools. Educators were not convinced of its benefit, which prioritized individually paced learning that did not fit students of the same age moving through a grade level together.
In a letter to Skinner, Pressey conceded a major pedagogical limitation: students learned how to master the machine, but not the subject matter. Horvath calls this the transfer problem, and he argues it remains the central weakness of edtech today. The technology may teach students how to use the device, but it does not reliably transfer to deeper learning.
Horvath's testimony and book arrive as schools across the country continue to invest in digital tools, including artificial intelligence. He does not advocate rejecting technology outright. Instead, he calls for aligning educational tools with how human learning actually works, warning that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them.
