Friday, Jul 24, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ ↗
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GENERAL

The Claim

In 2011, The New York Times reported that many Silicon Valley executives enrolled their children in schools with little or no use of screens and digital tools.

Verified by Lenz ·

The Short Version

The core claim matches the 2011 New York Times reporting: the paper described a Silicon Valley Waldorf school with little or no classroom technology that attracted children of tech-industry families. However, the wording is somewhat broader than the article itself. The piece focused on one school and explicitly named only one executive, while referring more generally to employees of major tech companies.

Caveats

  • The 2011 article focused on one specific school, not multiple schools across Silicon Valley.
  • 'Executives' is slightly overstated: the article explicitly identified one executive and otherwise referred to employees of major tech firms.
  • The claim is about what The New York Times reported, not proof that a large share of Silicon Valley leaders broadly rejected screens for their children.

The Receipts

  1. At Waldorf School in Silicon Valley, Technology Can Wait

    The New York Times

  2. A Silicon Valley school that doesn't compute

    UCLA IDEA

  3. Silicon Valley CEOs Send Children To Computer-Free Waldorf Schools

    Waldorf School of the Peninsula

  4. The Smartest People in the Room? What Silicon Valley's Supposed Obsession with Tech-Free Private Schools Really Tells Us

    Los Angeles Review of Books

  5. Prepare Your Child for the Future — Learn More — Waldorf School of the Peninsula

    Waldorf School of the Peninsula

  6. Morgan Ames on Silicon Valley's Obsession with Tech-Free Schools

    University of California, Berkeley

  7. Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent

    The New York Times

  8. Silicon Valley Parents Are Raising Their Kids Tech-Free

    Thrive Global

  9. A Silicon Valley School That Doesn't Compute

    Waldorf Research Institute

  10. The Early Show - Silicon Valley school: No computers in classrooms

    CBS News

+ 7 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Silicon ValleyThe New York Times