Our North Star is learning.
Student achievement in math and reading are declining worldwide according to the latest report from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In the U.S., The Nation’s Report Card reports similar trends and also emphasizes that reading scores are at an all-time low.
Without strong, foundational mathematics and reading comprehension skills, students will struggle to improve learning outcomes in other key subjects. Making matters worse, student learning outcomes are declining unevenly. Historically underrepresented and under-resourced students tend to be the hardest hit.
The news sounds bleak. Yet thanks to your generous support, Khan Academy has made an impact:
- Khan Academy has a learning solution that works: According to our efficacy research, spending 30+ minutes per week over the course of the school year (18+ hours total) leads to ~20% higher-than-expected learning gains.
- Khan Academy intentionally works with historically under-resourced and underrepresented communities: Our school district partnerships bring Khan Academy’s proven learning platform and support services to learners and educators in under-resourced communities.
- Khan Academy personalizes the learning experience AND aligns to classroom learning: Our proven program is designed to help students address critical gaps in their knowledge through mastery-based pedagogy. Our grade-level courses keep students focused on rigorous, grade-level work while teachers receive data and tools to target support. Khanmigo, our AI tutor and teaching assistant, is integrated into our core platform to enable personalized, on-demand support for students and teachers.
- Khan Academy is working to build safe AI tools and training: We are working alongside leaders in the education and AI research fields to implement best practices and guardrails. We are also working alongside the educators and administrators who rely on our education resources to ensure they have the knowledge to implement and use AI responsibly.
Sources: Programme for International Student Assessment, The Nation’s Report Card
Khan Academy works: Studies show 30 minutes per week over the school year improves learning.
We regularly conduct studies to determine our platform’s impact on student learning outcomes. Our latest study finds that using Khan Academy for 30+ minutes per week (18+ hours over the school year) leads to ~20% higher-than-expected learning gains on average. Read more about our latest efficacy study results.
How Khan Academy measures engagement
We have historically tracked user engagement based on the amount of time a learner spends on our platform. We track two types of learners:
- Yearly Active Learners (YALs): spend more than zero minutes on the Khan Academy platform
- Yearly Very Active Learners (YVALs): spend 30+ minutes per week (18+ hours over the school year)
We are particularly interested in ensuring as many individuals as possible become YVALs, which means they could be achieving ~20% higher-than-expected learning gains, as highlighted in our efficacy study results.
Because of you, we achieved the following in SY23-24:
- We built and developed Khanmigo, an AI tutor and teacher assistant.
- We added new mastery-enabled content across a wide variety of subjects.
- We made updates to our Khan Kids app to help young learners read and empower educators with additional learner insights.
- We brought our technology to school districts around the world in an effort to drive efficacious usage in historically under-resourced and underrepresented communities.
- We leveraged our Districts Partnerships program to bring Khanmigo to school districts in the U.S. and abroad.
- We piloted Khanmigo internationally in Brazil and Peru and conducted a preliminary beta test in India in preparation for a future pilot.
- We made Khanmigo free for all U.S. teachers.
Khan Academy is designed using learning science principles to maximize learning.
Our learning resources are grounded in learning science principles like mastery learning. We offer standards-aligned content and technology tools that empower anyone, anywhere to access a personalized, world-class education:
- content, activities, and exercises in 50+ languages designed to facilitate mastery learning
- free teacher tools and reporting
- Khanmigo, an AI-enabled tutor for students and a teaching assistant for educators.* Khanmigo can be paired with our content, activities, and exercises, or used on its own to deliver a personalized learning experience. Khanmigo is speech-to-text and text-to-speech enabled, which means it is accessible to learners of many ages, even those who are still learning to type.
- powerful data dashboards and reports for school district leaders, principals, and instructional coaches
- ongoing professional learning sessions for educators
- expert implementation support
