IRVINE, Calif. – Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton today released two new proposals aimed at putting California families and children first: one to stop technology companies from shaping what and how kids learn, and another to make California the world leader in protecting childhood by waiting until 8th grade to give children smartphones.
The Get Big Tech Out of the Classroom plan would bar technology companies and the organizations they fund from setting academic standards, writing curricula, designing teacher training or shaping state education policy. Groups advising California education officials would have to disclose their corporate funding.
Companies could explain how to operate a product after a school has purchased it, but could not use teacher training as marketing. Major new classroom technology would require independent evidence before it is introduced. Hilton would pause the adoption of AI in California schools until a full independent review reports by the summer of 2027.
“We can’t let the same companies that sell classroom technology also write the standards, design the training and rush AI into schools before anyone knows what it will do to learning or child development,” Hilton said. “Parents deserve a clear line between the vendors and the people deciding what children learn, not corporate funding dressed up as independent expertise.”
Hilton said the same fight belongs at home and in school: childhood should not be handed over to addictive screens.
The Wait Until 8th plan would work toward a voluntary but complete end to smartphones for children under 14, setting the social norm that children should not get a smartphone until 8th grade. Every California school would be phone-free from the first bell to the last, with exceptions only for emergencies, medical needs and disabilities. Every class would ask parents to sign a Wait Until 8th contract, with participation as the default. New parents would be invited to take the same pledge, and organizations that receive state funding would have to commit to the policy.
Hilton would also make basic call-and-text phones the practical alternative, work with the Legislature to make knowingly selling smartphones and other addictive technology to young children a criminal offense, and set a minimum age of 16 for social media.
“Bans on apps will not save childhood if we ignore the real problem: smartphones,” Hilton said. “Parents should not have to fight this one household at a time. California should make it normal again for children to grow up without a phone in their hand.”
