Reflections on Reimagined Khan Academy from Taft ISD

How can more students make more academic progress using Khan Academy? That’s the question that keeps us up at night. That’s what we want to get better at. Efficacy studies show that students who reach certain levels of learning on Khan Academy achieve 20-30% more learning.  In January 2025, we kicked off one of our most ambitious projects to date: an effort to reimagine Khan Academy from the ground up in an era when AI gives us new tools to help drive learning. By removing the friction that often gets in the way of consistent practice, we’ve made the platform more intuitive for students and more actionable for teachers. This SY25-26, we piloted the new experience with approximately 5,100 students and their teachers across five U.S. districts, including Taft Independent School District (ISD). What have we learned? This brief brings together insights from this early pilot.

“I actively use [the reimagined experience] to see where my students are having trouble…I can do mini lessons based on that. Let’s say there’s an area they’re weak in, I can use that information to spiral into other lessons in that unit in areas we need to reinforce. It gives me an opportunity to actually give the kids a little more practice.” — High school math teacher

By providing a clear picture of individual student needs through data, the new experience helps teachers address individual learning gaps while maintaining momentum with the full class:

“I know not all students are at the same level; kids fall through the cracks. I have to move on with my regular curriculum, so knowing I can go back and hit those target skills makes me feel better. I know they’re getting it and I don’t have to stop and reteach.” — Junior high ELA teacher

We intentionally innovate shoulder to shoulder with our district partners like Taft ISD because that is where the most learning happens. Students in a district setting are ~14x ² more likely to reach recommended practice levels than independent learners, making these classrooms the best place to refine our tools. By working directly with these educators, we can identify and remove the specific hurdles that stall student progress. This ensures the reimagined experience is built for the reality of the classroom, helping more students reach the threshold of practice that leads to measurable learning gains.

Khan Academy and Taft ISD’s partnership

Taft ISD is a small, rural district of roughly 800 students in which 84% are Hispanic and over half (57%) qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. In SY24-25, through a partnership made possible by the ExxonMobil Foundation, the district began using Khan Academy to improve math scores by accelerating STAAR test preparation. The initiative initially introduced Khan Academy during high school advisory periods to help students tackle their toughest challenges in core content areas. During advisory periods, students brought assigned coursework and worked through problems in small groups that included at least one teacher who monitored and encouraged students. Because teachers in these sessions were often supporting subjects they didn’t normally teach, Khan Academy served as a vital resource, filling in content gaps for educators while providing students with the high-quality practice they needed to move forward. 

The results were immediate. Within that first year, approximately 40% of December re-testers passed their exams—a success the district largely attributed to the focused practice on Khan Academy that students received during those advisory periods. Seeing this impact firsthand, teachers began expanding the use of Khan Academy beyond the advisory period and started building it into their daily lesson plans to reinforce core instruction across all subjects. Today, Khan Academy is used by ~500 Taft ISD middle and high school students and their teachers for STAAR test preparation. 

In SY25-26, Taft ISD joined our pilot to help test the reimagined experience. We spoke with Taft’s students and educators to hear their impressions of the reimagined classroom learning experience.

Encouraging students to keep practicing

To help more students reach the recommended dosage of practice on Khan Academy, we focused on removing the common points of friction that can stall learning. This included making the platform easier to navigate, providing proactive support when a student gets stuck on a difficult problem, and adding motivational elements to keep students encouraged.

Now when a teacher creates an assignment, it appears instantly within a student’s organized learning path. This focuses students’ attention on grade-level practice and gap-filling practice aligned with district learning goals. As one Taft ISD student noted:

“I like the fact that [the learning path] is pretty easy to use. It gives you steps in order to complete a weekly assignment and it shows all the assignments. It’s so organized.” — High school sophomore

Even with a clear path, students learning at their edge will naturally encounter challenges. To help them navigate those moments, we’ve embedded Khanmigo directly into the learning journey to offer support the moment it detects a student is struggling. This provides the kind of timely, personalized guidance students need to work through a problem and keep their momentum going:

“[Khanmigo] gives you ways to learn from the answer that you did wrong; it helps you work on the question a lot more and it gives you different strategies. When I get something wrong, I want to know what I did…and this really helps me personally.” — High school sophomore

For other students, having that immediate help is what keeps a difficult concept from becoming a dead end:

“Khanmigo’s helped me pass stuff that I’ve been stuck on. For example, I could be stuck on dividing thousands and Khanmigo is just right there and I can ask Khanmigo to help me out.”  — High school sophomore

Consistent practice is hard work. Learning science tells us encouragement is key to keep effort going. Small but meaningful details, like a burst of celebratory confetti when an assignment is finished, give students a moment to recognize their own progress and stay motivated to keep practicing. For one Taft ISD student, that simple acknowledgment makes a big difference:

“I like the confetti at the end and that it says ‘complete.’ It makes me feel special. It makes me excited to use it. It’s encouraging.” — High school sophomore

Empowering educators to personalize 

The reimagined experience is designed to put everything teachers need at their fingertips so it’s easier to make and act on data-driven decisions. By bringing together tools and insights that were once scattered, the new experience helps educators spend less time on administration and more time on the personalized instruction that drives student growth.

The updated dashboard consolidates student progress, district goals, and high-quality content into one workspace. By integrating Khanmigo’s teacher tools directly into this view, we’ve simplified the transition from reviewing data to implementing instruction based on student practice data. For many educators, having these resources has simplified daily planning:

“[The dashboard] helps me create the activities I want to do…or I can say, ‘Hey, I want to do this today, help me structure that,’ and it’ll do that. It saves a lot of time…about four to five hours per week” – High school U.S. and world history teacher

By surfacing student needs as they happen, the new experience allows teachers to adjust their instruction in real time. This visibility makes it easier to provide targeted support, ensuring students who are ready to move ahead can do so while those who need additional support can receive the intervention they need:

“I like that the students have a chance to work toward mastery or proficiency. I can use that data to see what we need to work on.” — High school math teacher

This level of insight also helps teachers map assigned Khan Academy practice directly to the specific STAAR standards they are covering in class. In this way, Khan Academy acts as a reinforcement to help students build the specific skills required for upcoming state testing:

“I like being able to use Khan Academy with the [STARR standards] we’re using. I can assign the ones we’re doing and they can get the extra practice they need.…I know they’re always practicing and getting done what needs to get done.” — High school math teacher

Thank you & looking ahead 

Our work with districts like Taft ISD is part of a larger commitment to building tools that work in the real-world context of a classroom. By refining this experience alongside our partners, we can ensure that every student is supported by a platform designed to keep them motivated. When consistent practice is paired with this kind of encouragement, the impact on academic growth becomes clear:

“[Khan Academy is] helping us improve our grades, from going from 20s to As and Bs.”

FOOTNOTES:

1: Study after study shows that using Khan Academy as recommended is associated with 20-30% learning gains. This amount of learning is associated with learning 60+ additional skills on Khan Academy compared to the prior year or spending 18+ hours on Khan Academy over the duration of the school year. 

2: This figure is based on comparing a subset of SY24-25 U.S. district partnerships licensed learners to independent learners outside of district partnerships over the same time period. In the comparison, we evaluated the number of students who became Yearly Very Active Learners (students who spend 18+ hours on Khan Academy over the duration of the school year).