The last few weeks have seen what is by now a well-practiced dance of the pro-edtech and anti-edtech editorialists squaring off.
Sal Khan announces yet another ambitious new venture from the stage of TED. The anti-edtech pundits, easy to spot by frequent references to Audrey Watters, point out (correctly) that we’ve heard it all before and that edtech silver bullets don’t work. Endless email discussions (and reply-all unsubscribe requests) ensue.
I agree with all of the skepticism about Sal Khan’s latest foray into revolutionizing education. I doubt it will have the impact he is predicting. And I enjoy a snarky take-down of another shiny tech startup as much as the next person. But I think that maybe we are missing the bigger point.
The critics reference Laurence Holt’s work and remind us that only 5% of users are engaging with Khanmigo. And they quote Kristen DiCerbo’s statement that users are not good at asking questions. Suggesting that, once again, technology developers are missing the mark.
But isn’t it a concern that students, after many years of school education, are not prepared to ask good questions or feel motivated to practice maths? That doesn’t seem like a technology problem alone, but an education system problem.
At MIT there’s a group that studies System Dynamics and one of the insights from decades of research is that we have a tendency to blame individuals, when we should really be looking at systems and structures that shape behavior. Education innovation might be a perfect example.
It’s entirely possible that Khan’s enthusiasm is misguided, and the edtech marketing hype is often nauseating, but the bigger problem that doesn’t seem to inspire the same passionate debates is that we are failing learners and teachers.
There are plenty of motivated passionate teachers and administrators, who are struggling to do the work they love. Too many students are being left behind and for the ones that make it to, and maybe even through college, employers report they still don’t have the right skills when they graduate.
Those are hard and important problems to work on and we need all the help we can get, from people trying to build better edtech, but also innovators in pedagogy, policy, and finance - even if not all or our efforts work.
In the case of Khan, it’s worth pointing out that a lot of the hard lessons learned have been shared publicly. There are research reports and case-studies that document how things have worked (or not) and why.
Is it really such a problem if five years from now, Sal Khan gives another TED talk, launching an ambitious new venture and acknowledging that the ETS/Khan/TED Institute didn’t quite work as well as he had hoped? I for one, would appreciate it if he was still trying to come up with new solutions to problems I care about. Even if they don’t work as well as hoped.
Posted on April 18, 2026