Now that organizations like Khan Academy have traction and resources, I think they'll be able to bridge the gap. They'll be able to iterate as they receive feedback from the educational community.
It would be nice if when teachers gave them feedback, they'd act on it. Unfortunately, it seems that any criticism of the Khan Academy is seen as an attack on the whole of the Silicon Valley, and every geek comes out to lead the charge against the educators suggesting that they have entirely the wrong approach.
Instead of viewing mathematics as a series of problems to be solved, each of which has a solution, maybe it would be neat of the Khan Academy actually spoke to some educators (and then publicly announced the results of this consultation)?
What would you suggest calling running pilot studies at schools (both affluent and lower-income), like Khan Academy has done with schools in Los Altos and Oakland (http://educationnext.org/can-khan-move-the-bell-curve-to-the...), and getting feedback and suggestions from the teachers who are implementing the pilot programs? Of course they could they do even more (although who of us really knows who they've spoken to and how much/what about), but it's a bit unfair to suggest that they haven't been working with educators.
The lessons they're learning from the massive amounts data they've been collecting from real students (ones outside the pilot programs, who are using their material in an uncontrolled, natural manner) also shouldn't be discounted, and I would argue that it might be as useful as talking to educators can be. It's definitely a Silicon Valley thing to put data up on a pedestal, but should it be valued any less than education research that can be hard to generalize from due to problems with experimental design (like giving extensive training to teachers in the experimental conditions when it's unlikely that most teachers who'll have to implement the same experimental curriculum will have the same sort of training/enthusiasm) or anecdotal evidence from teachers working with one or two classes?
Are you talking about the feedback in this article? Its sort of hard to act on "Using computers to teach math is just stupid".
As to why many people might want to defend Khan Academy, well, its because I think I would have been much happier with Khan Academy than the math education I actually had, and I would very much like it to be available to children like myself. I was bored stiff in math class in middle and high school, and being able to work at my own base, not bound by the slowest person in the class, would have been amazing.
Instead of viewing mathematics as a series of problems to be solved, each of which has a solution, maybe it would be neat of the Khan Academy actually spoke to some educators (and then publicly announced the results of this consultation)?