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The EdTech Backlash Is Here, and It's Just Getting Started (jacobin.com)
submitted 1 day ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/38188482

Tech vendors promised personalized, frictionless learning. What American schools got instead was mind-numbing, data-hungry junk software that devalues teachers and shortchanges students. A growing movement, led by alarmed parents, is saying enough.

Technology’s allure is always future oriented: Personal computing was going to supercharge productivity; social media and smartphones would strengthen interpersonal connections; and now AI will streamline the world of work. And for three-quarters of a century, education technology vendors have promised to optimize student learning and eliminate the busywork of teaching. But as Charles Logan, T. Philip Nichols, and Antero Garcia recently argued in Kappan, “the future they’re selling has not arrived — and perhaps it never will. But de-skilling, surveillance, and extraction — all of that is happening now, in our classrooms, today.”

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[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 7 points 1 day ago

Khan academy

[-] Meron35@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

Khan Academy has been on the enshitification journey for a while now.

Sal Khan in 2023 proudly proclaimed that AI could revolutionise EdTech with highly personalised tutoring, and made Khan Academy go all in on AI with their Khanmigo AI assistant tutor. Part of this ted talk explicitly has the AI pretend to be historical figures for assistance in history.

Three years later, Sal Khan admitted what all teachers already knew: that the AI tutor failed because most students didn't even both with it. Digging through forums reveals the similar suite of reasons: factual inaccuracies, inability to understand basic arithmetic, and opaque pricing based on "usage."

Didn't stop him from partnering with big tech to offer $10K bachelor degrees though.

Sal Khan: How AI could save (not destroy) education | TED Talk - https://www.ted.com/talks/sal_khan_how_ai_could_save_not_destroy_education

Why Sal Khan is rethinking how AI will change schools - Chalkbeat - https://www.chalkbeat.org/2026/04/09/sal-khan-reflects-on-ai-in-schools-and-khanmigo/

This CEO has teamed up with Google, Microsoft, and McKinsey to build an AI degree that could rival Harvard—and it will cost only $10,000 to attend | Fortune - https://fortune.com/2026/04/15/sal-khan-ceo-khan-academy-google-microsoft-ted-ets-higher-education-institute-bachelors-applied-ai-gen-z-college-upskilling/

this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
186 points (98.4% liked)

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