Educators talk cell phones, AI at Senate hearing on K-12 learning

Washington, D.C. (NEXSTAR) — At a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill, U.S. senators and educators from around the country agreed students should be doing better in school and discussed potential solutions.

The hearing focused on the current state of K-12 education. 

“The decline in test scores started before the pandemic and has continued after the pandemic,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said at the hearing, hosted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution said schools must start rewarding and incentivizing achievement. One important step, Hanushek said, is recruiting and retaining good teachers.

Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said she believes one of those incentives is increasing teacher pay, which she said should consider performance and positions.

Senators at the hearing placed a big focus on technology, particularly the impact cell phones are having on kids.

“We also worked on eliminating cell phones in schools,” Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) said of his work as lieutenant governor. “I think it’s the single most effective policy that every school could do immediately.”

The experts at the hearing agreed cell phone bans in schools could be beneficial but argued the use of phones and social media after school also needs to be addressed.

Lawmakers also asked about artificial intelligence. Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, said it can help with some instruction, such as tutoring, but agreed there should be some limitations on its use.

“What do you think kids are going to do?” she told the panel. “They are going to ask their AI friends to do their homework for them.”

Though much of the hearing was bipartisan, senators did have some differences.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) voiced concerns she had about what’s happening federally that affects school systems. Baldwin pointed to grants that had been canceled earlier this year and DOGE cuts to the U.S. Department of Education.

“At the local level, we are sometimes shuffling, looking in one pot to pull some money and invest in another,” said Scott Muri, superintendent emeritus for the Ector County Independent School District in Texas. “When we see those funding challenges, it creates challenges at the local classroom level.”

Republicans have been in talks to make the DOGE cuts to the Department of Education law, but they have not yet advanced legislation to do so.