for our daily homeroom.

For those of y'all who are new to this,

Khan Academy, we are

not-for-profit with a mission

of providing a free world-class education

for anyone, anywhere.

And when we saw the mass school closures,

not just in the United States,

but around the world,

there's now over 1.4 billion students around the world

who normally would go

to school, who aren't.

We realized that above and beyond

the resources that Khan Academy has been creating for years,

and offering for free

for teachers, students and parents,

for students inside of classrooms

and outside of classrooms around the world,

that it's our duty to step up and do more.

So we've been doing things like parent and teacher webinars,

we've been publishing things

like the daily schedules for different age groups,

that some of y'all might be familiar with.

And we are also doing this livestream,

and it's a way to stay connected

in this time of social distancing.

It's a way

to answer any questions that you might have,

and it's also a way to have interesting conversations

that are related to what's going on around us.

It could be related to education,

or it could be related to just the broader environment.

I do wanna say a few thank you's.

As I mentioned, we're a not-for-profit.

We're funded with philanthropic donations.

Even before the COVID crisis we were running at a deficit.

And now our traffic on Khan Academy is about two and a half,

it looks like, I looked this morning,

it's about 2.8 what it normally is.

And so that only increases our cost.

So if you're in a position to do so,

please think about helping us out,

khanacademy.org/donate.

And I wanna give a special thanks

to several corporations who stepped up

over the last couple of weeks in record time,

to help us with this COVID response.

These include folks like Bank of America,

which was the first to step up.

And shortly thereafter, AT&T,

Google.org and NORVATIS.

And that's above and beyond many of the foundations

and philanthropists and corporations like AMGEN,

that have funded Khan Academy through the years.

And as much as that funding helps,

I do wanna emphasize

that we still need more.

We're still operating at a significant deficit.

So funding at any level helps.

Over the weekend I put a video out on YouTube,

essentially just doing what I just did,

saying that we,

someone put that video onto Reddit,

and over the weekend it helped raise us a lot of money.

So thank you for doing that.

That definitely spread the word.

But I also wanna emphasize that

we are still running at a deficit and depleting our reserves

in order to do what we're doing.

So what we're gonna do today, like always,

whether you're watching this on YouTube, Facebook,

or some other social media channel.

This is changing day by day.

We're getting fancier every day.

But start posting questions.

I have access to some of them,

and then some of our team members are

looking at those questions,

and they're putting it up on a doc that I can read.

But we have a special guest today.

Our special guest today is a teacher

by the name of Tim Vandenberg,

who teaches sixth grade students in Hesperian, California.

And I think there's a couple of really interesting,

or many interesting things to talk to Tim about.

But when you think about the questions,

you can ask questions for me.

But also, you can pose questions,

whether you're a teacher, parent or student,

from a really impressive teacher

that'll help us think about how Khan Academy

can be used in the classroom for maximum impact,

but also maybe some ways to think about

how it could be used at home during the closures.

So Tim, thanks for joining us.

- Hi, Sal.

- And I actually, I was watching

this documentary about Monopoly, recently.

And beyond being a superstar teacher,

you are also, what was it,

number two in the country in Monopoly?

- At the last US Championships, I placed second place.

So they say that puts me at rank number two in the country.

So it was a lot of fun.

- You're such a sucker, Tim (laughs)

(Tim laughs)

- My sixth graders helped train me, so yeah.

- Oh, okay

So we might have a few champions in that group too.

So maybe,

a good place to start, - Yes.

You know, tell us tell everybody how you've,

you know, pre-COVID crisis,

how you were using Khan Academy in your classroom?

The types of students that you've been trying to help out,

where were they before?

And then what have you seen since?

- Well, with Khan Academy,

and so what I decided is,

I'm gonna make my sixth graders go back

to the early grade levels,

do early math, arithmetic,

the lower grade levels,

(machine beeps)

on Khan Academy,

to master and fill in the holes like you've described

so well on your many videos,

that I encourage people to go watch.

And by having them go back and review,

and fill in those gaps,

these very low disadvantaged,

highly diverse kids, who were basically

failing their lower grade skills

on the state test for California.

They ended up absolutely doing fantastic

on their state test results over the last three years,

and it would have been four years in a row,

but California decided

not to have state testing this year

due to the emergency health situation.

But we have a data chart I can show

the absolutely amazing results using mastery learning,

I think your team is gonna post that up.

So on the left hand side you can see,

on how these kids did in fifth grade

compared to their California,

county and district peers.

And this is compared to the green line on top,

that is a passing score in fifth grade,

over to a passing score in sixth grade, on the right.

And you see my kids are basically the average kid

in California and the county and district,

and my class are very far below grade level.

But using the mastery learning model

that is so powerful and easy to do on Khan Academy,

my kids average growing 95 points last year,

and pretty much the same the last two years

before that as well.

Compare that to the average kid in California,

went up just over one point.

One point of growth,

and that's the best scores I can find

over the last three years in California,

was two years ago.

That's almost 95 times the growth

of the average kid in California.

That doesn't mean every kid,

but that's the average. - And just to make sure,

and just to make sure

I understand this chart,

what this shows is,

on the left hand side,

the left point is,

performance on the fifth grade state test.

- And then,

on the right data dot, - Yeah.

- the performance of sixth grade.

So a student who just tracks that green line on the left,

that means they're right at grade level for fifth grade.

And then a year later,

they're right at sixth grade for sixth grade.

So that would be what essentially the standards,

or the assessments expect of students,

essentially you get a year of learning in a year.

And it looks like California on average,

starts fifth grade well below grade level,

and then starts sixth grade well below grade,

or starts the year well below grade level

and then ends the year well below grade level,

but there's about a grade level of growth.

Your students, - Yeah,

- and I think if I read some of your background,

90% of them were below grade level

and what you're looking at,

we're looking at - Right.

- is the average,

but significantly below grade level,

you're talking you know,

high needs student body, 100% free and reduced lunch.

But over the course of the year,

almost all of them being significantly

below grade level,

to almost all of them being significantly

above grade level, after a year.

- Exactly.

And this is for,

teachers might understand this,

parents may not quite grasp this.

But this is absolutely amazing growth,

and this is real.

And this is not teaching to the test,

this is lives changed.

These kids now believe that

they can learn math and master math,

all thanks to mastery learning model on Khan Academy.

Because they actually want - Something I want

to make sure,

- to be filling those out,

- So explain that, explain how those gaps

are actually filled in.

What's interesting is,

these are sixth grade students,

and you're starting them off many times at early learning,

which is kindergarten first,

second grade arithmetic type content.

And many folks could say wait,

if they're gonna go all the way back there,

how can they ever get to grade level content,

much less get ahead of grade level?

- Right, so during the school year

while still simultaneously teaching

and mastering the sixth grade skills,

which is very hard for them,

because they don't have the foundations,

we also, I require them to go back

and do the course challenges and the unit tests

for all of the lower grade levels.

So that math actually starts to make sense to them,

so that they truly become math masters and champions,

and actually start believing that this

is something they can do.

And the majority of them I graduate

and send them off to honors class,

or above grade level classes

in junior high because of this.

- And so this is really a bit of an idea of,

as you can say, even going slowly or go fast.

We talked a lot about it here at Khan Academy

is that in a traditional model,

let's say a student gets an 80% on you know,

their multiplication tables,

then the next year when they're learning division,

they're building it on a weak foundation of multiplication.

When you get to algebra, and there's a decimal,

if you've only got 70% in fifth grade on decimals,

now you're building on a weak foundation.

And that might be or that arguably is,