{"id":2001,"date":"2026-04-09T21:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/2001\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:21:09","slug":"why-sal-khan-is-rethinking-how-ai-will-change-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/2001\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sal Khan is rethinking how AI will change schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter<\/a> to follow our work.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, as Khan Academy founder Sal Khan rolled out an AI-powered tutoring chatbot, he predicted a revolution in learning.<\/p>\n

So far, the revolution hasn\u2019t happened, he acknowledges. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor a lot of students, it was a non-event,\u201d Khan told me recently about his eponymous chatbot, Khanmigo. \u201cThey just didn\u2019t use it much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khan gives this analogy: Imagine he walked into a class, sat in the back of the room, and waited for students to seek out help. \u201cSome will; most won\u2019t,\u201d he said. That\u2019s been the experience with AI tutoring, he said. It doesn\u2019t necessarily make students motivated to learn or fill in gaps in knowledge needed to ask questions.<\/p>\n

Khan\u2019s comments are an acknowledgement that AI has not quickly allowed for the creation of an effective super-tutor, as some initially hoped<\/a>. It\u2019s an early indication of the limits of AI to drive massive learning gains, long an unrealized goal <\/a>of various technologies. While Khan remains optimistic about various uses of AI in education, he\u2019s also come to see its limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just view it as part of the solution; I don\u2019t view it as the end-all and be-all,\u201d Khan said in our interview.<\/p>\n

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In the summer of 2022, OpenAI leaders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman reached out to Sal Khan. They were months away from releasing ChatGPT, and were hoping Khan Academy \u2014 a large nonprofit that works with schools across the country \u2014 could showcase the technology\u2019s potential benefits. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize it yet, but the world was about to be turned upside down,\u201d Khan wrote in his 2024 book \u201cBrave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That\u2019s a Good Thing).\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI provided Khan Academy with early access to a more advanced AI model, GPT-4. With that the Khan Academy team then built a specialized chatbot, Khanmigo, designed to help students learn and restricted from simply giving them the answer. Khan himself quickly became an evangelist for the technology\u2019s uses in schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,\u201d Khan said in a widely viewed TED Talk<\/a> in 2023. \u201cThe way we\u2019re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.\u201d <\/p>\n

He suggested that eventually AI could turn the average student into an academic standout, citing a seminal but controversial 1984 study<\/a> on the value of individualized tutoring.<\/p>\n

Khan also appeared in a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d segment<\/a> that featured northwest Indiana\u2019s Hobart High School, which was an early adopter of Khanmigo. <\/p>\n

Kristen Musall, a geometry teacher at Hobart High, gave Khanmigo a try when it first rolled out. Musall appreciated its encouraging, teacher-like tone, but she found that students didn\u2019t really care for the bot. They found it frustrating \u2014 Khanmigo sometimes made mistakes, but also wouldn\u2019t give away the answer. \u201cIf students don\u2019t engage with the material enough to know what they\u2019re looking for, then an AI like Khanmigo doesn\u2019t necessarily help,\u201d she recently told me.<\/p>\n

Musall no longer uses Khanmigo in her class. She says there\u2019s been more enthusiasm for the product among administrators than teachers in her school. <\/p>\n

A few of Musall\u2019s most advanced students have taken advantage of AI to learn new topics. But, as far as she can tell, more students are using it to just find answers, which has created a massive headache for teachers. Nationally, a majority of teenagers say AI-powered cheating is at least somewhat prevalent in their schools, according to a recent Pew survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peggy Buffington, Hobart\u2019s superintendent, said there\u2019s been a range of reactions from teachers and students to AI. There was initially a learning curve for students to ask Khanmigo questions, but that they\u2019ve gotten a lot better, she said: \u201cIt\u2019s like anything in education. You have to learn how to use the tool and use it appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buffington says that schools need to prepare students to use AI responsibly and Khanmigo is preferable to commercial products they would use on their own. Overall, she\u2019s found the tool beneficial. \u201cOur kids can log in at home and they can get help with their homework and it won\u2019t give them the answer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But Khan Academy officials have seen that many students won\u2019t take advantage of that option or don\u2019t know how to. Kristen DiCerbo, the organization\u2019s chief learning officer, said AI can only respond to students based on what they ask. And it turns out, she said, \u201cStudents aren\u2019t great at asking questions well.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiCerbo was initially hopeful that AI would be able to personalize instruction to students\u2019 needs and interests. That hasn\u2019t happened. \u201cSo far I am not seeing the revolution in education,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

AI is still poised to shake up<\/a> American education in many ways \u2014 by making cheating easier, reshaping how teachers approach their work, and changing the broader economy in ways that affect schools. So far the evidence base for AI in education remains \u201cextremely limited,\u201d according to an overview paper<\/a> released last month.<\/p>\n

Khan Academy officials say they\u2019re learning from their experience with Khanmigo and pairing it with other offerings. <\/p>\n

A recent study<\/a> found that when teachers used Khan Academy to help students practice academic content, their classes made slightly faster learning gains. (Lower-performing students, though, saw few if any improvements from Khan Academy.) This was before Khanmigo.<\/p>\n

Khan Academy recently announced<\/a> an overhaul of its product that provides students additional academic practice. Now Khanmigo is incorporated directly as a way students can get advice as they\u2019re working through specific problems. A spokesperson said the organization made this change because \u201cstudents were not seeking out Khanmigo\u2019s help as much as we had hoped.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAI is going to help,\u201d said Khan of this reimagined Khan Academy. \u201cBut I think our biggest lever is really investing in the human systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat\u2019s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,2215,2217,2219,2218,2216,2220],"class_list":{"0":"post-2001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ai","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-horizontal","11":"tag-khan-academy","12":"tag-microsoft-briefing","13":"tag-microsoft-chief-technology-officer-and-executive-vice-president-of-artificial-intelligence-kevin-scott","14":"tag-sal-khan","15":"tag-seattle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}