College & Workforce Readiness

College Board Enlists Khan Academy for SAT Prep

By Benjamin Herold — March 10, 2014 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

It’s not just the SAT itself that’s changing.

Soon, students will be able to prepare for the high-stakes college-entrance exam by going on an online “SAT quest,” complete with custom practice problems, instructional videos, and tailored feedback offered by the popular nonprofit learning website Khan Academy.

Officials from both Khan Academy and the College Board, which administers the SAT, billed the new partnership as an opportunity to level the highly competitive—and often expensive—playing field of SAT test-preparation.

“The College Board cannot stand by while some test-prep providers intimidate parents at all levels of income into the belief that the only way to secure their child’s success is to pay for costly test preparation and coaching,” College Board President David Coleman said in prepared remarks delivered March 5 here, where the South by Southwest education conference took place last week. “It’s time to shake things up.”

See Also

See related story, “SAT Makeover Aims to Better Reflect Classroom Learning.”

‘Interactivity’ and ‘Richness’

Beginning immediately, students and other users will be able to access hundreds of previously unreleased questions from past SAT exams, as well as videos with step-by-step solutions, on the Khan Academy website.

To help students prepare for the new exam, set to debut in 2016, Khan Academy next spring will release materials and tools bearing the College Board brand, including adaptive and game-based online instructional offerings that can gauge where individual students are in their preparations for the SAT, and provide customized feedback.

Khan Academy founder Sal Khan told reporters that the forthcoming materials would offer “interactivity, quality, and richness,” with students getting “very personalized feedback through the exercise.”

The redesigned SAT exam will represent a major change, with greater emphasis on citing evidence to support answers, more focus on analyzing arguments, and fewer areas of math coverage.

Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, speaks at an event in Austin, Texas, about his organization’s new partnership with the College Board to provide free online test preparation for the SAT. At left is David Coleman, who became the president of the College Board in 2012.

During a media briefing with reporters, Mr. Khan and Mr. Coleman acknowledged that providing online preparation materials for math—where “productive practice” of discrete skills can lead to rapid learning gains—will be easier than for reading or writing.

“This will take some work,” Mr. Coleman said.

The digital divide is also a “real issue for us” that’s “not going to be solved overnight,” said Mr. Khan.

Recent data suggest many families still lack broadband access. A 2013 survey by the Pew Research Internet Project found that 70 percent of U.S. adults have broadband connections at home. The figure for blacks was 62 percent,and for Hispanics 56 percent. And for those adults lacking a high school diploma, just 28 percent have broadband at home.

Mr. Coleman said the College Board will invest in partnerships with schools, public libraries, after-school programs, and Boys & Girls Clubs to help make sure there is equitable access to the Khan Academy resources. Mr. Khan, meanwhile, emphasized that his organization’s online resources work best when a “great teacher, coach, or parent is involved as a stakeholder,” helping students absorb and make use of the feedback they receive.

Mr. Coleman and Mr. Khan told reporters that the new marriage “happened quickly” and will not involve any exchange of money between the two organizations.

FairTest, an advocacy group critical of the SAT, questioned whether the new relationship will have its intended effect.

“The partnership with the Khan Academy is unlikely to make a dent in the huge market for high-priced, personalized SAT workshops and tutoring that only well-to-do families can afford,” said Robert A. Schaeffer, FairTest’s public education director, in a statement.

Some critics also said the College Board seemed to be sending conflicting signals by promising an exam that would not encourage cramming and test-taking “tricks,” even while it offers a test-prep program.

In any case, Mr. Coleman was enthusiastic about the plans.

“The College Board has never before entrusted our name to an external organization to ensure the materials students encounter are faithfully aligned to the challenges of our assessment,” Mr. Coleman said in his prepared remarks. “May I simply say, [Khan Academy’s] work is beautiful, and based on evidence of what most accelerates students’ learning.”

Special coverage on the alignment between K-12 schools and postsecondary education is supported in part by a grant from the Lumina Foundation, at www.luminafoundation.org. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.
A version of this article appeared in the March 12, 2014 edition of Education Week as Khan Academy Recruited to Provide Online SAT Prep

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

College & Workforce Readiness This East Coast District Brought a Hollywood-Quality Experience to Its Students
A unique collaboration between a Virginia school district and two television actors allows students to gain real-life filmmaking experience.
6 min read
Bethel High School films a production of Fear the Fog at Fort Monroe on June 21, 2023.
Students from Bethel High School in Hampton, Va., film "Fear the Fog"<i> </i>at Virginia's Fort Monroe on June 21, 2023. Students wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the film through a partnership between their district, Hampton City Schools, and two television actors that's designed to give them applied, entertainment industry experience.
Courtesy of Hampton City Schools
College & Workforce Readiness A FAFSA Calculation Error Could Delay College Aid Applications—Again
It's the latest blunder to upend the "Better FAFSA," as it was branded by the Education Department.
2 min read
Jesus Noyola, a sophomore attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, poses for a portrait in the Folsom Library on Feb. 13, 2024, in Troy, N.Y. A later-than-expected rollout of a revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FASFA, that schools use to compute financial aid, is resulting in students and their parents putting off college decisions. Noyola said he hasn’t been able to submit his FAFSA because of an error in the parent portion of the application. “It’s disappointing and so stressful since all these issues are taking forever to be resolved,” said Noyola, who receives grants and work-study to fund his education.
Jesus Noyola, a sophomore at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, stands in the university's library on Feb. 13, 2024, in Troy, N.Y. He's one of thousands of existing and incoming college students affected by a problem-plagued rollout of the revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FASFA, that schools use to compute financial aid. A series of delays and errors is resulting in students and their parents putting off college decisions.
Hans Pennink/AP
College & Workforce Readiness How Well Are Schools Preparing Students? Advanced Academics and World Languages, in 4 Charts
New federal data show big gaps in students' access to the challenging coursework and foreign languages they need for college.
2 min read
Conceptual illustration of people and voice bubbles.
Getty
College & Workforce Readiness Learning Loss May Cost Students Billions in Future Earnings. How Districts Are Responding
The board that annually administers NAEP warns that recent research paints a "dire" picture of the future for America's children.
6 min read
Illustration concept of hands holding binoculars and looking through to see a graph and arrow with money in background.
Liz Yap/Education Week and iStock/Getty