Five California School Districts Win Official SAT Practice All In Challenge

Rural and small schools in California participated in the College Board’s Rural and Small School Official SAT Practice All In Challenge over the past school year. The College Board challenged 15 California schools to encourage their students to connect their College Board and Khan Academy accounts to receive a free, personalized SAT practice plan. Five school districts earned awards and $10,000 cash prizes for their participation.

From those districts, over 1,500 new students linked their College Board and Khan Academy accounts to unlock their free, personalized practice plans to get ready for the SAT. With over 4,500 linked accounts, students in grades 9-12 have completed over 397,000 practice problems and logged well over 8,300 hours of practice.

• Patterson Joint Unified School District won the REACH Award: Growth for the highest percent increase of linked accounts in a large district.
• Newman Crows Landing Unified School District won the Proof of Practice Award: Problems for the highest average weekly percentage of active accounts in a large district. 
• Waterford Unified School District won the Proof of Practice Award: Depth for the highest percentage of students who have practiced 6 hours or more in a large district.
• Le Grand Union High School won the REACH Award: Growth for the Highest percent increase of linked accounts in a small district.
• Mariposa County Unified School District won the Proof of Practice Award: Depth for the highest percentage of students who have practiced 6 hours or more in a small district.

The College Board and Khan Academy, a leader in online education, developed the interactive practice tools to help all students, regardless of income level or background. Official SAT Practice helps students prepare for the new SAT and college-level courses, by reinforcing what students are learning in the classroom and focusing on the knowledge and skills essential for college readiness.

Research shows that students who practiced 20 hours on Official SAT Practice achieved an average 115-point score gain on the SAT – nearly double the average gain among students who did not use Khan Academy. We also found that practice on Khan Academy advanced all students without respect to high school GPA, gender, race and ethnicity, and parental education.

Students can sign up for free at satpractice.org.

In partnership with the University of California and the California State University systems; California educators encouraged the use of Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy among their students and made incredible gains in their efforts to increase access to SAT and college readiness. The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative provided funding.

While this year’s SAT Practice All In Challenge is complete, this is not the end of our partnership with rural and small schools in California. Congratulations to the participants and winners in this year’s challenge.