Natasha Singer’s Post

This lands especially hard because of the pharma parallel — once you see "industry funds what helps industry" stated that plainly, it's hard to unsee it anywhere else. I've spent time thinking about this exact structure in K-12 AI specifically: almost every credible voice in this space is, directly or indirectly, funded by the same companies whose products they're evaluating. Thirteen years of reporting to say it this clearly is real work. Looking forward to the book.

Great piece. Having been in the edtech world fir 30 years, it is an asymmetrical relationship between tech companies and education systems. Schools, especially in poorer countries, are desperate for quick solutions. Edtech companies promise this and the tech itself is a physical prop that shows voters that a minister if education is doing something to address the issues. There is research showing that when tech is used as part of holistic reform efforts it has positive outcomes, but the human investment rarely happens.

Good overall but the emphasis on computer coding and Code.org is misplaced. The reality is that Hadi Partovi was small potatoes compared to the radical and profound impact of Big Tech via the influence of Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation, which managed to convince the US Dept of Ed under Arne Duncan to incentivize states to expand ed tech, loosen privacy rules, link teacher evaluation to student test scores, close "failing schools" and expand charter schools, and require the Common Core standards via Race to the Top. All this happened before code.org really got going, and was ultimately responsible for the transformation of our public schoolsto into data farms for ed tech.

One more thought after sitting with this: I have no problem being left out of the frontier-model race entirely. If anything, it's exactly what let me put protecting kids' and teenagers' data as the very first design decision, almost obsessively, before pedagogy, before the AI itself — without needing anyone's approval to keep it that way. When nobody's funding you, nobody gets to dilute that priority.

As someone who helped pioneer coding for kids (AgentSheets, as block-based programming environment is celebrating its 30 year anniversary this year) I don't really see any connection between "Coding Kids" and "Big Tech" capturing American schools. Coding tools like AgentSheets, AgentCubes, Scratch and RULER.game are NOT from Big Tech. Big Tech such as Apple and Google are, of course, interested in selling hardware to schools but let's be clear. This is working not because of coding but in spite of it.

With all due respect, isn't this a sales and marketing story? It would fit right into the Business section of your paper as a triumph of free markets. Schools are cash-strapped or view themselves as a charity case, so clever companies give them "free" stuff in return for market growth. "So, it was capitalism all along." I would LOVE to engage in actual conversations about teaching and learning. Some of us have the receipts from decades of work.

This is much deeper than it sounds because it is hard to separate the socio-political factors that influence systematic boundaries at the policy level. Civics of Technology Project is doing interest work on the topic, here is one of their posts: https://www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/technofeudalism

This is not only a U.S. problem. The same pattern can be seen across Europe and in Spain: education often seems to feel an almost constant need to add something new, as if novelty itself were synonymous with improvement. But new does not necessarily mean better — or worse. A technology is, first of all, a resource. What matters is how, why and when we use it. AI is different in scale because its impact will extend far beyond the classroom and into almost every aspect of our lives. That makes its integration into education especially important — and it requires professionalism, evidence and well-prepared teachers. Perhaps one of the real challenges is precisely this: not simply giving schools more technology, but ensuring that educators have the knowledge, judgement and training needed to use it meaningfully. Innovation should not be the pursuit of novelty. It should be the intelligent integration of what genuinely improves learning.

Thank you for writing this, the comment field does not seem to be open for me, so sharing here. I would only add that this has been a global story. First came the hardware, then the software ecosystems built around it, increasingly underpinned by data collection. These models were never really “free” in the way they were presented. Governments are only now beginning to have more serious and critical conversations, in Europe and elsewhere, about what these vendors actually bring into education and what schools give up in return. The difficult question is: what is the alternative? Going fully analogue? These systems are powerful precisely because they have been built over many years, creating infrastructure and capabilities for content delivery and integration that are very difficult for smaller local providers to match. Also, the largest technology companies have become embedded in parts of the decision-making architecture itself, through partnerships, standards, procurement processes and even some of the frameworks used to define and assess their value. So, where do we go from here? To me, part of the answer has to be stronger public infrastructure for digital education that would give schools, and the students!, genuine choice.

The contrast within my own family is striking. My seven-year-old has a school-issued Chromebook, while my older children (30 and 24) completed assignments by sharing our one home computer, or going to the library. Greater access can be valuable, yet access alone is not learning. The real question is whether technology is strengthening curiosity, critical thinking and genuine understanding, or simply increasing screen time and creating new dependencies. We should be far more intentional before making each new tool a classroom staple. I pushed back hard recently when I had a no screen time day and my 11 year old told me she needed her Chromebook and to “read”!