When schools shut their doors in 2020, Edgenuity was one of the companies districts turned to. Its pitch, in its own marketing, was helping schools "pivot" from "brick to click." A year later, a BuzzFeed News investigation found that the pivot made the company a lot of money, and left many of the students using it with almost no teaching at all.

Disclosure: EdgyPro makes software for students who use Edgenuity. Facts in this article come from the reporting linked throughout and listed under Sources.

"There Is No Teacher With Edgenuity"

BuzzFeed's October 2021 report opens in Northport, Alabama, where the Tuscaloosa County School System paid $370,000 for Edgenuity in the 2020-2021 school year. The software provided no live instruction, but promised "on-demand tutoring" six days a week. Parents said the tutors were often unresponsive for hours. One mother, Terri Burnette, said her son clicked "Tutoring Help" on a math question about measuring angles: "But nobody came."

"They set these kids up to fail. She can't talk to a teacher, she can't talk to anyone. There is no teacher with Edgenuity."

Angie Richardson, parent, Northport, Alabama (BuzzFeed News)

Her daughter, Sharon, previously an A or B student, fell so far behind that the district required her to return in person, and her grades became too low for a career tech class she'd wanted.

One Teacher, a Thousand Students

The pattern repeated across the country. In St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, the district licensed Edgenuity for 500 students in July 2020; by the start of school more than 5,000 had registered. Half a dozen staff members ended up responsible for over 600 students each, and one teacher oversaw more than 1,000 students in courses ranging from Spanish to calculus. In March 2021 the superintendent ended the district's virtual option: "We tried. What we found is we can't meet the needs of the students."

In Providence, Rhode Island, the district initially agreed to pay for 500 high schoolers; more than 6,000 signed up, and a majority of remote high schoolers were failing by February, according to staff with access to the data. "This is some of the worst instruction I have ever seen," one district teacher told BuzzFeed. In Mineral County, Nevada, remote high school students from the Walker River Paiute Tribe had completed less than 2% of their coursework nine weeks into the year.

The Company's Side

Edgenuity told BuzzFeed it was proud of its response, that it expanded capacity for free, hired and trained "tens of thousands of educators," and that average tutor wait times, around 20 minutes in October 2020, improved. It said the failures reflected districts' "inability to staff enough teachers" and that "some districts used our products in ways that they weren't designed." Its former longtime CEO, Sari Factor, said hearing that students struggled "makes me feel badly, as someone who cares about kids."

Not every district had a bad experience: BuzzFeed spoke with administrators in smaller, well-staffed programs who were happy with the software. The common thread in the failures was the same one students still describe today: Edgenuity standing in for a teacher rather than supporting one.

Still Using Edgenuity in 2026?

Millions of students still take Edgenuity courses, often for credit recovery or summer school, and often with the same thin supervision. If that's you, EdgyPro is built for exactly this situation:

• Auto Advance moves you through activities without babysitting the screen.
• Auto Answers fills quizzes and tests from a shared database of verified answers, with a Grade Range so scores look natural.
• AI Answers and the Ask AI button give you an explanation instantly, instead of waiting on a tutor.
• Discord logging sends your progress to your phone.

Read how to finish Edgenuity fast for a realistic plan, or grab a key and let EdgyPro do the waiting for you.

Sources

• Caroline O'Donovan, "This Virtual Classroom Company Made Millions During The Pandemic While Students Languished," BuzzFeed News, October 11, 2021, buzzfeednews.com.