AI Solutionism in EdTech Is Worse Than Snake Oil

Charlie Meyer

25 Apr 2025 — 1 min read

As I’ve spent more time at Ed Tech events, I’ve run into more and more AI solutionism. No offense to anyone, but it kind of drives me crazy.

When AI is your hammer, every problem in education looks like something you can smash.

Grading is hard => AI agent!
Student/teacher ratios are bad => AI agent!
Lesson planning takes time => AI agent!The list goes on.

I’m a skeptic, and obviously some of these products are built with real educator feedback and pedagogical understanding. Not everyone is a bad actor. However, there are plenty of people selling AI snake oil who just don’t get it.

I spent two years in the classroom. I’m not going to pretend to be a veteran educator. But two years was enough to teach me this

Student/teacher relationships are likely the single most important factor in the classroom.

Tools that threaten these relationships aren’t just snake oil, but have the potential to be actively harmful. Students used to receiving personalized feedback suddenly receiving a score from Claude might… not like that? Teachers might… enjoy making lessons tailored to their specific student populations?

This is a bit of a rant, but I want to see solutions that strengthen student/teacher relationships, not threaten them. AI itself isn’t bad, but it’s causing a gold rush, land grab mentality. It’s risky, and as an industry, we should probably be a lot more careful.

“Move fast break things” has no place in the classroom.

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