Over the past two decades, I have written a great deal about teacher and student access to and use of laptops, tablets, and phones in U.S. public schools. Access meant school districts purchasing computers and making them available to both teachers and students. Where in 1981, there were, on average 125 students per computer in U.S. schools, by 2000 that ratio had dropped five students per student.

And two decades later, it is nearly 1:1 across both elementary and secondary schools. The dream that educational technophiles had dreamt for decades of every teacher, every child and teenager using new devices has been largely fulfilled.

In 2023, it is fair to conclude that nearly every U.S. teacher and student from kindergarten through high school has access to at least one device at home and school across ethnicity, race, and social class (see here). So getting schools to adopt computer devices…