By Judith Eckert
The US Department of Education is being dismantled, and not a moment too soon. For years, federal overreach has eroded local control, dumbed down curriculum, and pushed policies that treat screens as saviors rather than suspects. Now, in the wake of President Trump’s March 2025 executive order, it’s finally up to governors, communities, and, most importantly, parents to reclaim the hearts and minds of our children.
We are in the midst of a crisis that no federal agency is equipped to solve: America’s kids are neurologically hijacked by digital devices. From smartphones to “learning” apps, pixelated babysitters are rewiring developing brains, draining motivation, and flooding classrooms with anxiety, attention issues, and behavioral outbursts.
Parents across Alaska and the country know this instinctively. You’ve seen it at dinner, on family outings, in your own home. You’ve fought the tantrums and watched the sparkle leave their eyes. The time for action is now, and it’s urgent.
This isn’t an exaggeration. Brain scans show tech-addicted kids lighting up the same way people with an addiction do. Psychiatrists have begun calling screens “digital heroin” and “electronic cocaine.” And our schools are paying the price. In 2024, just 31% of American fourth graders were proficient in reading. That’s not a slip, it’s a collapse.
The federal bureaucracy failed to protect our kids from this silent epidemic. Now that it’s stepping aside, the responsibility falls on us. We, as Alaskans, must urgently, locally, and unapologetically fill the vacuum. Our children’s future is in our hands.
Here’s what Alaska must do:
- Establish State Task Forces on screen addiction and child brain health.
- Ban addictive edtech apps from classrooms unless they prove academic value and safety.
- Bring back vocational and outdoor learning with hands-on activities that restore neurological balance.
- It’s time to empower parents, not platforms, to guide their children’s development. You, as parents, have the power to shape your children’s future. It’s time to reclaim that power and steer your children away from the digital abyss.
- Embrace each culture and encourage culturally appropriate education.
- We don’t need more tech “solutions.” We need truth, courage, and leadership. Alaska is uniquely positioned to lead. We value faith, family, and freedom. We know what it means to live unplugged and raise kids who build forts in the woods, not just followers on TikTok.
This is a rescue mission, not just for academic achievement, but for the very soul of the next generation.
It’s time to stop outsourcing parenting to screens and treating kids like test subjects in a Silicon Valley experiment. Governor Dunleavy, pastors, teachers, moms, and dads across Alaska must stand up and say ENOUGH.
Let Big Tech peddle its dopamine traps elsewhere. Here in Alaska, we still know the value of dirt under your nails, eye contact, and the slow, sacred work of raising a child.
The federal government is stepping back. The question is, will we step up?
Judith Eckert is an educator with over 30 years of experience in K–12 and special education. Her upcoming book, The Pixel Pandemic: Restoring God’s Design for Our Children in a Digital World (launching April 29, 2025), explores the neurological, emotional, and spiritual impact of screen addiction and offers real-world solutions for families and communities. Learn more at PixelPandemic.org.
We have dry villages why not tech dry cities with an absolute ban on screen and children
If you believe those villages are dry you are mistaken. It is a myth.
Dunleavy? Lead?
Those two words don’t belong together.
Having stood aside from the i(diot)-phone fad, and never having carried ANY sort of cell phone, I have repeatedly seen the damage, and the significant changes in personality, in those who started carrying an i(diot)-phone. And those changes are NOT for the better — less ability to focus, to plan ahead, to memorize almost anything, to engage in any sort of complex conversation. So I can only imagine the much greater damage that such devices have on young children.
Jefferson, I get that it is easier to “blame the machine”, but it really comes down to individual behavior and choices. Having owned a cell phone for many years, I use it to receive the rare call or the occasional text and to get me where I am going in a place I do not know my way around. That’s it, but that’s my choice. I don’t like to experience life through a filter.
Parents have always had the power to restrict media and engage their kids in other activities. Schools using multi-media to convey information isn’t a bad thing in an of itself.
This situation is an indictment of parents and teachers more interested in their own convenience than raising and educating children. Add to that the constant barrage of “safety concerns and warnings” by “experts” via the media and twisting of language (words are assaults). Young parents wanting to be viewed as “good parents” and keep their children “save” may opt to sit them in front of a screen, instead of letting them play on the jungle gym or heaven forbid, call another 5 year old by the wrong pronoun.
Machines are not the issue, the lack of individualism and character are and Mrs. Judith here is dangling another carrot to misplace blame to some inanimate object instead of where it belongs: parents and leaders.
“Outsourcing parenting to screens”
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Nice one, Judith, forgive us in advance for cheerfully plagiarizing it.
The problem with this article is the fact that most children are on digital more with their parents than at school. Even though I believe everyone agrees with the facts in the article, it is time we stop being parents and have them support taking phones out of schools. That is actually something in the legislature right now. My biggest want from education is to teach children basic skills like reading. As an educator that arrived in the state in 1981 Alaska was number 2 academically. We are now dead last. I do not understand why most parents are ok with this. The democrats in the legislature just want $1,000 additional money for BSA and refused any outcomes or changes at all.