How ISTE turned EdSurge into slop

The EdSurge I once worked for would be telling the story of this year’s edtech and AI backlash with accuracy and piercing honesty. Instead, ISTE has turned the site into AI slop.

Editor’s note: Ed-tech pile-on, Friday’s subscriber-only Secret Bonus Section, can now be read by all subscribers.

Back in January, during my first semester in the classroom, I walked up to a table of seventh-graders hunched around a Chromebook, peered into the screen, and saw my own face staring back at me.

The students had typed my name into Google and YouTube and found stories and interviews I’d done during my long career as an education journalist, most notably as the K-12 editor for EdSurge, a position I held for nearly five years.

“Look,” they exclaimed, “we found you!”

Perhaps the kids were trying to embarrass me or show off how resourceful they were. Instead of getting testy, I talked about those stories and explained how my time at EdSurge inspired me to pursue teaching. And I encouraged them to keep reading.

Throughout the semester, I frequently reiterated why writing was important. At a time when AI platforms can do all your writing and thinking for you, I said, it’s still meaningful to develop your own voice — the way I did when I wrote about my love for Carmen Sandiego or why Ashton Kutcher might not know as much about education as he thought he did.

I return to those essays in particular whenever I’m trying to convince them (and myself) that while writing is hard, it’s also enjoyable. They were also the kinds of stories that could only be told on EdSurge.

Alas, last week my former colleagues and I were heartbroken to learn about a spate of recent changes that have all but destroyed the EdSurge we knew and loved.

The remaining journalists were let go. The site now features zero reporters, AI-generated content, and a broken story archive. The folks in charge say they are pivoting to a “contributor-driven” model that leaves much to be desired.

The remaining journalists were let go. The site now features zero reporters, AI-generated content, and a broken story archive.

EdSurge got its start in 2011, when former Forbes tech editor Betsy Corcoran and a clutch of co-founders received startup funding to turn a newsletter about the edtech industry with 50 subscribers into a darling of the tech and education media landscape.

Nobody could have predicted what it would morph into over the next decade. During its heyday, several EdSurge stories won recognition from the Education Writers Association, while others earned regional awards for business coverage. Former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro once visited a prison based in part on EdSurge reporting. The BBC featured an elementary school principal battling the addiction crisis, discovered through the principal’s poignant essay on the topic.

Other stories cross-published with Wired, Slate, Mother Jones, Fast Company, The New Republic, and more. An op-ed on technology replacing human connection in schools went mega viral. Even Paul Krugman cited our data reporting on teacher pay in his New York Times column. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Our critics often charged us with boosting edtech to an unreasonable degree. In hindsight, there may have been some truth to that. (EdSurge wasn’t Hack Education’s 62nd biggest edtech debacle of the 2010s for nothing). But we always strove for balance in our coverage, telling a lot of stories about spurious corporate research claims, pointless gizmos, bad bets by the Gates Foundation, unsavory Edmodo ads, and the failure of Amazon’s education efforts that nobody in commercial edtech was particularly clamoring for — even as we survived off tech-adjacent foundation grants.

To me, EdSurge was both a necessary publication and a great place to work — full of vim and occasional snark — stacked with an incredibly bright, talented, and endlessly dedicated team. I’d never worked so hard at a job or had nearly as much fun.

Above: What EdSurge looks like now.

By the time I left in 2022, however, that golden age had all but ended. After struggling for years to find a sustainable business model, ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, acquired EdSurge in 2019.

During the pandemic we took a pay cut, which was eventually restored, and stopped hiring for full-time roles. Corcoran left shortly after the ISTE acquisition. Then managing editor and guiding light Tony Wan went to Reach Capital. Last year, Emily Tate Sullivan, who won those coveted EWA awards, followed research editor Marisa Busch to The 74. Separately, the remaining veteran editors, Jeffrey Young and Rebecca Koenig, were let go, leaving only a handful of part-time or less experienced journalists still trying to produce great work.

The recent hollowing out was simply the latest in a long line of indignities. Budget cuts squeezed things considerably. Publishing frequency declined. A recent redesign broke many archival links (sorry Krugman fans — that data reporting has vanished, replaced by a goofy 404 “Ooops” page). And, most gutting of all, the front page now features essays that are so blatantly AI-written, I won’t even use weasel words to cover my tracks.

(What can you say about a story that includes lines like, “My principal believed in slow, intentional adoption…No pressure. No mandates. Just familiarity.” Well, I know what I’d like to say, but I fear it isn’t printable.)

Media, of course, has been a declining empire for a while, and I rarely fault companies for making painful decisions when necessary. The ecosystem simply cannot support journalists like it used to when ad revenue gushed from a geyser.

But ISTE is not a media company. It earns revenue through edtech conferences and professional development. This made them clueless, but also rather ambivalent. While I was there, they kept their hands off editorial decisions. But they always seemed a little regretful of acquiring us three months before the pandemic wiped out their conference revenue. And they had no business running us.

I do wonder why such an organization even bothers to prop up the desiccated husk of EdSurge at all. Perhaps edtech still needs boosting, just without any of that pesky journalism getting in the way.

They kept their hands off editorial decisions. But they always seemed a little regretful of acquiring us. And they had no business running us.

I know I flatter myself believing anyone at ISTE wants or cares to hear what I think about anything. If they are listening, I would just like to say that what they’re doing to a once-great publication makes my job as a teacher infinitely harder.

The next time one of my students googles my name and EdSurge pops up, they may very well be directed to another front-page example of AI-produced “writing” and wonder why their English teacher—a former writer—associates himself with such soulless claptrap.

If the site that used to pay his salary now believes AI is every bit as good as a human journalist or educator’s authentic voice, then why should they spend the time to develop one of their own?

To that, I will say that the deficient critical thinking skills of one person — or organization — does not exempt the rest of us from developing a more robust version of that skillset and putting it to use. Then I will ask them to take out a pencil, not an AI app, and start writing. If nothing else, I will hold my classes to a much higher standard than any propagated by ISTE.

These days, CEO Richard Culatta spends a lot of time on places like LinkedIn railing against the recent edtech backlash, in which schools are starting to seriously question their investment in laptops and software over the past two decades. Typically, he exhorts us to take a nuanced approach to the issue.

I only wish he’d spend a tenth of that time reading his own publication to see what reckless, unrestrained tech adoption really looks like. AI doing the work formerly done by resourceful journalists, and coasting off the reputation they built, is anything but nuanced.

It’s all very well and good to tell everyone else to clean their house. But you should probably not be smashing your own to smithereens and standing in the rubble when you do it. The EdSurge I knew would be telling the story of this year’s edtech and AI backlash with accuracy and piercing honesty. In short, the nuance you’re pleading for.

I can’t help but think that all of us — alumni, readers, and the edtech community at large — deserve a lot better. Even if it’s just the mercy of giving EdSurge a quick, clean death.

Stephen Noonoo is a preservice educator in California and a former editor for EdSurge, Edutopia, and eSchool News. You can find him on LinkedIn, Substack, and if you’re a middle schooler, perhaps in your very own classroom.