Dr. Kaleri Salas-Ramirez testifies on ed tech's impact on children's cognition and mental health

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Chair Dinowitz and Chair Krishnan.

My name is Kaleri Salas Ramirez, pronoun she, her, ella.

I should also say Dr.

Salas.

The Department of Education has heard me multiple times, but in this moment, I want to speak not just as a parent of a 10th grader and a second grader, but also as a neuroscientist and a fellow educator.

We are seeing that our children have been deeply impacted, not just by the use of ed tech, but also by mandated curriculum that has ed tech embedded, as well as screen time.

Since the pandemic, not only are we seeing a decrease in test scores, but we're also seeing an increase in diagnoses of children with autism,

with children with ADHD, in addition to mental health concerns of depression and anxiety.

The American Psychological Association and the Association of American Pediatrics have all listed

recommendations in terms of

of screen time use in our schools, but also the direct correlation between these mental health conditions and neurodivergence related to trauma and their experiences in schools.

I think it's absolutely critical to take a look at not just how we are, if we are effectively using technology in our classrooms,

but also the connection between the assessments and the experiences of our children in the classroom and what we know are evidence-driven practices that our teachers are fully aware.

So I will say there are some really amazing things happening in our schools.

So I am not, this is not a knock.

On what our teachers and educators are doing in our classrooms.

This is about improving our practices now that we have evidence that what we are doing in our classrooms has been directly impairing cognitive load, emotional engagement, and has increasing racial bias in our classrooms.

So we're asking for an audit of all of these ed tech platforms and that we should have a full moratorium on AI and ed tech until we understand what this technology is being used for.

Thank you.