By Annie Murphy Karabell and Maya Mechenbier
Schools Beyond Screens is a national coalition of parents and educators advocating for evidence-based guidelines around technology in the classroom.
With over 200 local chapters around the country, Schools Beyond Screens has heard from many parents that Districts cite federally mandated assessments as a key reason for implementing 1:1 device programs.
Below, we discuss federally mandated annual assessments (for example, PARCC and Smarter Balanced). These are annual state proficiency assessments, not universal screening measures, assessments included in curricula, progress monitoring measures, or other school-based tests.
How did we end up here? Why are digital assessments driving the proliferation of screens in the classroom, instead of the evidence about the best way for kids to learn?
Why do public schools start assessments in the third grade?
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 required states to set performance benchmarks for students, schools, and districts based on standardized testing. These requirements became a condition of continuing to receive federal funding. Under the current federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), districts are still required to conduct annual testing in grades 3 through 8 in reading and math, plus at least once in grades 10-12.
See National Education Association’s timeline of this history for more details.
Assessments are a multi-million dollar industry, largely concentrated in a small handful of companies.
Why did these assessments become largely digital or computer-based?
In the mid-2010s, two federally funded testing consortia, PARCC and Smarter Balance, built their exams to be computer-based from the start. This catalyzed a shift in districts around the country. The idea was that computer-based adaptive tests could more precisely measure achievement and provide results more quickly.
Relying on computer-based testing was further accelerated by the 2010s culture of bridging the digital divide, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
While we may not know if these computer-based (and increasingly “adaptive”) assessments are more precise than the paper-based tests that preceded them, we do know that the goal of providing results more quickly has not been consistently realized. Many school districts receive the results of these computer-based assessments months after their students take the tests. Often, the raw data and analyses are provided too late for districts to use the data to make decisions for the upcoming school year. Many families receive their children’s spring assessment results in the following fall, too late to be able to find support or enrichment for their child for the current school year.
The results of the computer-based assessments, are however, used to rate or rank schools. We believe that neither the screen-centric method of delivery, nor the use of the assessments to measure aggregate school performance, serves children’s needs or interests.
Even though the intention behind computer-based assessments was to speed up processing scores and provide more timely feedback to parents and teachers, that is not always how implementation has played out.
What’s the impact on kids’ overall screen time in the classroom?
Federally-mandated annual assessments have long played an undue role in instruction, and now that problem is compounded by computer-based assessments, which create powerful incentives for school leaders and educators to increase students' overall time on devices.
Performance depends not only on academic knowledge but also on students' comfort navigating digital testing platforms. Some older studies suggested that computer-based testing may lead to lower scores because of students’ unfamiliarity with computers, especially younger learners.
This has motivated districts to pursue 1:1 device programs for children as young as kindergarten, to prepare them for taking the test. Schools and teachers can feel compelled to prioritize time on devices because they feel pressure to ensure that students can navigate the platforms and gain test-taking skills, regardless of individual learning and test-taking needs, apart from a formalized 504 Plan or IEP accommodations and exceptions.
In this way, the rise of computer-based assessment has indirectly and likely unintentionally led to the rise of more in-class device and screen time.
What’s the potential risk of school districts mandating computer-based assessments, and therefore driving more in-class screen time?
There is a strong evidence base that has grown considerably on the harms of too much screen and device time on children’s brain development, mental health, and overall well-being.
The U.S. Surgeon General's May 2026 advisory on the harms of screen use, drawing on dozens of peer-reviewed studies, found that higher levels of screen time are consistently associated with poorer educational outcomes, including lower grades and test scores, with researchers attributing part of the effect to digital multitasking interfering with attention, concentration, recall, and reading comprehension. The advisory's recommendations to schools include shifting more coursework back to books and paper wherever feasible.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has reached similar conclusions in its own updated guidance, affirming that recreational and instructional screen time can crowd out sleep, physical activity, and academic work.
Studies also suggest that daily use of devices negatively impacts reading comprehension and that individuals’ differences should be considered in assessment policy, given that time pressure can increase cognitive load and may therefore exacerbate the inferiority of screen-based reading.
Do these assessments have to be digital or computer-based?
No. In fact, the Department of Education’s own regulations include several policy goals that support providing more flexible options for students.
State assessments must be valid, reliable, and fair for their intended purpose (34 CFR § 200.2(b)(4)). If a student's score is impacted by physical or cognitive fatigue due to the digital format or difficulty navigating a digital interface, compromising their ability to demonstrate that they’ve actually mastered the content (“screen inferiority”), then that puts the validity of the test into question.
Assessment systems are expected to reflect Universal Design for Learning principles (34 CFR § 200.2(b)(2)). These principles include “flexibility in the ways information is presented, in the ways students respond or demonstrate knowledge and skills, and in the ways students are engaged,” and “reduces barriers in instruction, provides appropriate accommodations, supports…”
Mandating a digital-only format for all students goes against all these principles, especially for younger elementary school age test-takers, and any student who may perform better on a paper-based test.
For example, here is the first question from a commonly used sample third-grade ELA (English Language Arts) test (Smarter Balanced). Note that the child has to read the story by scrolling vertically while also viewing the questions on the right side of the screen.
States have flexibility to use computer-adaptive testing, but nothing in that provision requires an exclusively digital delivery model (34 CFR § 200.2(b)(10)).
But this is the situation most families encounter. There is no paper option, even as pediatricians and child development experts are saying paper-based learning is superior.
What should we do now?
We now know that an excessive amount of screen time has damaging effects on children’s health and development. There is no need for computer-based testing to drive an increase in children’s overall daily screen time throughout the year.
The Department of Education can clarify that states can and should offer paper-and-pencil operational test forms as a standard option, rather than only as a possible testing accommodation as part of an IEP or 504 Plan, to comport with UDL principles. Offering a paper option as a choice, rather than a blanket switch in either direction, allows the format to match the individual student's needs rather than assuming one medium is universally better for all students.
States should reevaluate their assessment delivery model to account for the developmental and physiological evidence now reflected in federal public health guidance and emerging research.
Regardless of test format, the time that students spend needing to “prepare” must be reasonably limited. If the computer-based tests are so difficult to learn that students necessarily must spend hours over multiple days preparing, there is something fundamentally wrong with the test design. Districts should demand better.
It is time to reevaluate the impact of computer-based assessments, relative to the risk of harm to children, taking into account the latest scientific research on brain development in childhood and adolescence.