For years, “1:1” was often treated as progress in itself.

Now schools are asking more demanding questions about the technology they provide: at what age, for how long, for what purpose, and with what evidence?

Some of that correction may be badly needed.

But look at the details. New York City is pausing student-facing generative AI through eighth grade while requiring high-school AI literacy. Iowa’s elementary screen-time cap explicitly exempts dedicated computer science and technology curriculum.

Limiting children’s use of technology and teaching them to understand it can belong in the same policy.

I kept digging into this, and it became bigger than one LinkedIn post. So I built a public US K–12 Technology & Literacy Policy Tracker.

It brings together screen and device policies, AI rules, digital literacy, AI literacy and computer science, with district examples where state policy doesn’t tell the whole story.

The question running through it: what are schools restricting, and what are they teaching children to understand about technology?

It’s a working resource, with sources and gaps made visible. The image shows selected verified actions as of October 4, including some that take effect later; it isn’t a national census. Corrections and additional primary sources are welcome.

https://thestewartbrown.com/k12research?topic=Computer+science

Robert Dickson’s public research trackers helped convince me this work would be more useful out in the open.

We should be more intentional about what technology enters the classroom—and more ambitious about what children understand when they leave it.