This is the second of two guest blog posts written by Danielle Sullivan, Senior Partnerships Manager of the Northeast for Khan Academy. Learn more about how Khan Academy partners with school districts to improve SAT and graduation results → District SAT Prep and book time with Danielle directly from her calendar.
Power moves
This summer, I spent one full day listening to three high school principals talk about how they got their students to actually care about SAT practice.
And honestly, very little of what they talked about had to do with software.
They talked about field days. Sticky notes. Prom tickets. School pride. Conversations with juniors about where their school ranked and what they could do about it.
I left with pages of notes, and what stuck with me most was this: the schools getting results were not necessarily doing anything complicated.
They were doing a handful of pretty simple things really well.
I’ve been in edtech for about 15 years, and I’ve seen plenty of great tools roll into schools with a lot of excitement and then slowly disappear into the background. Usually, the difference isn’t the tool.
It’s what the school builds around it.
Here are five things these principals were doing that I think are worth stealing.
1. They made SAT readiness a real school priority
In every school, the principal was very clear that SAT readiness mattered.
Not in an “we mentioned it at the August faculty meeting” kind of way.
They kept talking about it.
It came up with teachers. It came up with students. It showed up in the goals they were tracking and the questions leaders were asking throughout the year.
That matters because schools have about 10,000 competing priorities at any given moment. If something is going to stick, people have to know it actually matters.
And none of these principals talked about it like another mandate being handed down to teachers.
It was much more: this is something we believe will help our students, so we are going to make room for it.
2. They got the students bought in
This might have been my favorite part.
Before asking teachers to change anything, these principals talked directly to their students about why SAT performance mattered.
And they didn’t give them some long speech about college and career readiness.
They made it personal.
In Rhode Island, SAT performance is connected to school accountability and star ratings. One principal went to his juniors and basically said, “We’re a three-star school. Do you want to be the class that helps move us to four?”
He thought they might roll their eyes.
They didn’t.
The kids bought into it.
Another school talked with students about the Seal of Biliteracy-style recognition available for strong performance and what they could walk away with after graduation.
The specific incentive will be different everywhere. That isn’t really the point.
The point is that adults spend a lot of time deciding what students should care about without actually talking to students about what might motivate them.
These principals did.
3. They stopped pretending advisory was going to solve the problem
This one made me laugh because I have seen this play out in so many schools.
SAT prep takes time.
Then someone looks at the schedule and says, “Great, we’ll put it in advisory.”
Except advisory is 15 or 20 minutes, three other things need to happen during it, students are absent, there’s an assembly, someone needs to finish a survey, and suddenly those 20 hours of SAT practice are never actually happening.
These schools stopped trying to cram everything into one little block of time.
Instead, they spread the work across the building.
Teachers in different subject areas could start class with one SAT-style question connected to something they were already teaching. A bell ringer. One question. A couple of minutes. Then move on.
And teachers didn’t have to sit around writing SAT questions themselves. They could use Khanmigo to create one based on the skill they were teaching.
That is probably the first idea I would steal.
It doesn’t require a new course. It doesn’t require completely redesigning the schedule. And it makes SAT readiness something the whole school can support instead of something that belongs only to the math and English departments.
4. Students knew their own data
All three schools talked a lot about data.
But not just administrators looking at dashboards.
Teachers knew the data.
Students knew the data.
And students knew what their own numbers actually meant.
That is a huge difference.
We talk constantly in education about being “data driven,” but sometimes that means adults sitting in a meeting looking at spreadsheets while the students themselves have no idea where they are.
These schools were putting the data in front of students and helping them understand what they could improve.
One principal talked about students eventually coming to him and asking what they should work on next.
That’s the goal.
At that point, SAT practice isn’t just another assignment adults are making kids complete.
Students have some ownership of it.
The schools were also looking across multiple data points, including SAT practice and state assessment results, instead of relying on one dashboard to tell the whole story.
5. They made it fun without spending a fortune
None of these schools had some giant incentive budget.
They just figured out what their students cared about.
One school held a field day for students who hit their PSAT goal. They had games, food and time together.
Another offered things like prom tickets, a reserved parking spot or lunch with the principal.
One school created an after-school SAT club where students could work together a few hours a week. They even used social media to make it something kids wanted to be part of.
That is such an important point.
Recognition matters.
Community matters.
Feeling like somebody noticed that you worked hard matters.
You do not necessarily need expensive prizes. Sometimes you just need to make the work visible and make the kids feel like what they are doing matters.
What all three schools had in common
The more I thought about these schools, the more I realized there really wasn’t some secret SAT strategy.
They created a system.
Leadership talked about it.
Students understood why it mattered.
Teachers had manageable ways to support it.
Everyone looked at the data.
And students got recognized for the work.
None of that is flashy.
But I think that’s exactly why it matters.
Edtech has spent years telling schools that the right product will solve the problem. I don’t think that’s how this works.
A great tool can make the work easier. It can provide the practice, the data, the feedback and the support.
But the tool cannot create the culture around it.
That part still belongs to people.
And after listening to these principals, I think that might be the biggest lesson of all.
The SAT platform is the easy part.
Getting an entire school to believe the work matters is where the real work happens.
Learn more about SAT Prep for districts on our website: khanacademy.org/schools
