New York
The FOCUS ACT
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Isn’t screen time in school different from time spent scrolling TikTok?
A large percentage of EdTech uses gamified and engagement-based design, the slot-machine principle that keeps users hooked similar to social media. In her testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing “Plugged Out: Examining the Impact of Technology on America’s Youth,” pediatrician Jenny Radestky stated, “Many apps in the app stores make claims of being ‘educational’ without evidence of efficacy.” In other words, when it comes to EdTech “quality” remains elusive.
Time spent on screens in schools adds to children’s overall screen time, which experts state “has raised serious public health issues since it might harm their cognitive, linguistic, and social-emotional growth.” The Mayo Clinic states that too much screen time can be linked to a long list of health problems including obesity, irregular sleep, behavioral problems, impaired academics, violence, and less time for play, which is crucial to child development. The American Academy of Ophthalmology reports that it is facing “an unprecedented challenge: caring for the eyes of children and adolescents who’ve been staring at screens since infancy.” Cutting back on classroom screen time via the FOCUS bill will boost kids physical and mental wellbeing in addition to improving their academics.
What is the FOCUS Act?
The FOCUS Act, or New York State Senate Bill S10685, is a bill that prioritizes evidence-based, analog learning methods (books, pencils, paper) for K-12 students and restores internet-enabled and electronic devices for intentional tech use, as well as for children with demonstrated needs (IEPs) across New York state. The bill was introduced in the New York State Senate in August of 2026 by Senator Andrew Gournardes. The state legislature will consider voting the bill into law during the 2027 session. FOCUS stands for “Fostering Optimal Classroom Use of Screens.”
What will the FOCUS Act do?
Create Generative AI and chat-bot-free classrooms
Prioritize pencils, books, and paper (Evidence-based analog learning methods)
Refocus School Technology Toward “Intentional Tech” Use
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2K-5: Device-free classrooms
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Restore analog-based homework through 8th grade
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Grades 6th-12th: shared computer carts or labs
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Grades 9th-12th: 1-to-1 devices with parental opt-in only
Safer Classroom Technology With Better Oversight
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Require school-issued devices to be free of social media, games and gamified design, messaging, AI chatbots, and cameras
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Require Ed Tech companies to register with the A.G.’s office
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Only allow ed tech products that meet improved data privacy standards and pass independent testing demonstrating improved learning outcomes
Maintain access to quality AT for kids with demonstrated needs in the form of IEPs or 504s
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The same improved oversight and vetting for gen ed technology will apply to assistive technologies ensuring greater transparency, data privacy protection, and learning outcomes
Strengthen Parental Transparency and Rights
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Require schools to inform parents of device, app, and tech use plans prior to school year start
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Secure parent’s rights to opt-out of Ed Tech
Update Technology Instruction
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Improve computer literacy standards to include education on social media harms, AI literacy, and media literacy skills
Why is the FOCUS Act important?
The U.S. has spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents.
Reading and math scores on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)—the gold standard test for student achievement—have been plummeting, coeval to the introduction of school-issued technologies.
A similar pattern is evident across recent National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) scores, known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” Researchers from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford who have studied the scores of the last decade recently attributed this “generation-long decline” to the rise of EdTech.
Won’t my child be left behind without Educational Technology?
EdTech tools have no independent evidence that they improve learning outcomes in a sustained, meaningful way. In fact, there is mounting evidence, as in the above test scores, these applications have harmed learning.
A recent United Nations Global Education Monitoring Report found: “There is little robust evidence on digital technology’s added value in education…and [the evidence that does exist] comes from those trying to sell it.”
In a recent conversation between Jared Cooney Horvath and Jonathan Haidt, the pair discussed how there has been a 650% increase in kids’ use of tech while only 11% of kids today can demonstrate computer literacy proficiency.
Experts from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development argue that the best future-proofing for our children is reading books.
Time spent on screens is also time spent away from developing the gross and fine motor, executive functioning, and social skills that are so crucial to life-long success.
Won’t my child be left behind without A.I.?
While the FOCUS bill’s updated Computer Standards will have age-appropriate media literacy education that brings critical thinking skills to evaluating A.I.-created or altered content, it is time we learn from past mistakes and avoid rushing to adopt another untested technology for our classrooms.
All the independent studies on A.I. and education thus far point to the same conclusion: A.I. harms learning in significant ways.
A brief sampling:
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A study by the Brookings Institute found that AI use in children and adolescents can lead to “cognitive stunting.” In other words, it robs our children of the opportunity to learn how to think for themselves.
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A recent study out of China found that kids who used AI saw their average homework score rise by 18% across all subjects while their test scores fell by 20% below their classmates who had not used the technology.
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As Digital Delusion author Jared Cooney Horvath, PhD, MEd says, A.I. is a tool for experts, not a tool for novices. “Teach a person a tool, they’ll learn a tool. Teach a person to think, they can use every tool.”
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Most tellingly of all, where do tech executives educate their children? At schools and in classrooms where ed tech and AI are not used.
What about my kid’s Assistive Technology and related special education technology needs?
The FOCUS bill ensures that kids with Assistive Technology (AT), apps, and tech-based supports mandated in their IEPs and 504s will still have access to these technologies. As with EdTech products for general education students, the FOCUS bill will help improve these technologies by requiring their manufacturers to register with the Attorney General’s office and by holding them to higher privacy and instructional standards.
For some neurodivergent learners such as those with attentional challenges, screens exacerbate attentional issues. As special education advocate Denise Champney MS CCC/SLP
writes, “When children with ADHD are handed a device, they are more prone to be distracted by their device, in turn making it harder for them to attend to learning.”
As Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath points out in his article The Equity Illusion of EdTech, “Lower-performing students have declined far more sharply than their high-performing peers” since the introduction of EdTech in schools. “Much like a Pavlovian response, repeated digital exposure conditions students to more distraction, shallower processing, and weaker learning—especially those students who depend most on structure and human guidance.”
What about racial and economic equity?
According to neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, in his substack post on The Equity Illusion of EdTech, “educational technology functions less like an equalizer and more like a cognitive amplifier: students who already possess knowledge, discipline, and academic support may gain modest benefits (or at least suffer less harm), while those lacking these foundations fall further behind. Whatever else digital tools may be doing in education, closing equity gaps is not one of them. If anything, EdTech appears to be widening them.”
Neuroscientist Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez shares similar concerns about A.I. “AI in schools risks an entire generation of students becoming increasingly dependent on AI to read, write, solve problems, and make decisions instead of trusting and strengthening their own reasoning, critical thinking and creativity,” Dr. Salas-Ramirez wrote in the NY Daily News. “Students of color deserve to learn to trust themselves, to think expansively and critically, to delight in their creativity and to love reading, learning and writing.”
The FOCUS bill will ensure that all children have the right to an analog education, not just a privileged few.
What about Computer Science classes?
The FOCUS bill is not anit-tech it’s pro “intentional tech.”
As things stand, children are getting a lot of EdTech and next to no technology education. To quote the ScreenTime Consultant Emily Cherkin, “Children need technology education, not educational technology.”
By maintaining access to technology for the instruction of Computer Science and other higher level classes in which the use of technology is central to the learning objective, such as learning layout for high school year book or editing software for a film class, the FOCUS bill stands to be the first “Tech-Intentional” bill for U.S. public schools.
Why all the concern about data?
Our children are not a product. According to the New York Times, many tech companies came into classrooms not to enhance learning but to create life-long users of digital products. According to the Wall Street Journal:
To Google, the K-to-12 market and Chromebooks were a critical entry point for building lifelong brand loyalty, according to internal documents released during the social media trials. The company trained its eyes on children under 13 as the world’s fastest-growing internet audience. YouTube sought to close the 80 million-hour-per-day viewing gap between school days and weekends, according to a 2016 document entitled “YouTube edu opportunities”: “Increasing usage in schools M-F could decrease this gap!”
Beyond addicting children to platforms, data privacy matters because harvesting and selling children’s data is how EdTech companies profit in direct violation of student privacy laws.
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iXL has been the subject of a data privacy violation lawsuit. Most recently, the makers of iReady are facing not just one, but two lawsuits for failing to keep children’s data safe.
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According to the Internet Safety Labs, 96% of EdTech applications share your children’s personal data with additional third parties without your consent or knowledge.
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The U.S. Department of Education found that on the black market, a child’s educational record is worth $250-350.
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The recent PowerSchool data breach captures this problem: 62 million student records, going back forty years, plus another 10 million teacher records, were stolen in a breach of PowerSchool’s unified data system. It is currently one of the largest data breaches of children’s information in U.S. history, and it will not be the last.
Why is the FOCUS Act important?
“The U.S. has spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents.” Reading and math scores on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)—the gold standard test for student achievement—have been plummeting, coeval to the introduction of school-issued technologies. A similar pattern is evident across recent National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) scores, known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” Researchers from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford who have studied the scores of the last decade recently attributed this “generation-long decline” to the rise of EdTech.
Won’t taking away school iPads and Chromebooks upset kids?
Schools that have opted to reserve technology for tech intentional learning have happier students who are more engaged with their teachers and peers. At McPherson Middle School in McPherson, Kansas, “Jade LeGron, 13, said curtailing Chromebooks had been ‘super beneficial’ because students had stopped fighting with teachers over video games and had less opportunity ‘to be mean to each other.’”
Students at Washburn High School in Minneapolis report becoming more deeply connected by disconnecting with technology in Maureen Mulvaney’s English classes. "We've been playing hacky sack at our school a lot... There's like some groups of kids I never would have even asked to join if I hadn't taken the time in this class to talk to them. I wouldn't have the opportunity or like the courage to have done so if I had my Chromebook with me," Vivian Ferris said. Even better, Mulvaney’s students began the year with 46% of the class feeling confident in their reading abilities. Half way through the school year, 96% felt confident.
When children in New York City’s Upper Manhattan schools took a “Screen Break” for a week, one third grader named Dulce reported, “‘If I watch something for a while, my head starts to get weird. It makes me feel sleepy…If the whole world gets consumed with technology, like computers… our brains might become fried. Not like fried chicken,’ she quickly clarified.”
Can the FOCUS Act win?
Absolutely! According to a recent Century Foundation poll, “Americans are united against the Tech takeover of American schools.” The poll’s Number One finding? “Concern over technology and AI in schools is widespread and intense—and voters want the government to act.” We will need your help!
How can I help get the FOCUS Act passed?
Use Find My Senator and call or write your state senator and urge them to vote for the FOCUS bill Senate Bill S10685.
Help spread the word in your own community. Sign up to stay in the loop and join Distraction Free Schools-NY’s mailing list and join our advocacy efforts.
Who is sponsoring the FOCUS Act?
The bill was sponsored by Senator Andrew Gournardes of New York’s 26th District and co-sponsored by Senator Jamal T. Bailey of New York’s 36th District and Senator Jessica Scarella-Spanton of New York’s 23rd District.
The FOCUS act is based on the Safe School Technology and Social Media-Free Schools model bills by Distriction-Free Schools Policy Project (DFSPP), a growing national coalition of parents, educators, and school administrators united in calling for legislative action and policy changes to address the overuse of smartphones, social media, and EdTech in our nation's schools. DFSPP is a joint venture of the Becca Schmill Foundation and Smartphone Free Childhood United States.
When will the FOCUS Act be considered?
During the 2027 legislative session, which runs from January 6, 2027 to June 10, 2027.
Who supports the FOCUS Act?
The FOCUS Act is supported by Distraction Free Schools Policy Project, Distraction Free Schools New York, Becca Schmill Foundation, Smartphone Free Childhood United States, Fairplay for Kids, Schools Beyond Screens, and New Yorkers of diverse backgrounds.
What is Distraction Free Schools New York (DFS-NY)?
DFS-NY is the New York State chapter of the Distraction Free Schools Policy Project, the leading state coalition in the fight for intentional technology in our children’s classroom. You can join DFS-NY’s efforts here.