All nice points Karim, but I’d like to play devil’s advocate. First, you claim that”On the most recent Program for International Student Assessment, American high school students finished 25th in math among OECD countries.” As a math educator, you should be wary of statistics. Rank order fails to separate statistically insignificant differences. Moreover, when controlled for race, US (Whites and Asians) do very well in international math, science, and reading exams considering the largely ill-equipped schools they attend. Check out the stats here…http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/ide/Also, your claim that ” Meanwhile, a recent Raytheon report found that 61 percent of middle school students would rather take out the garbage than do their math homework.” is also statistically devious. It seems that most schoolchildren don’t enjoy math or even that most hate it. The truth is more nuanced than this. According to a Gallup up, math was by far the MOST liked subject in school . My source is http://www.gallup.com/poll/12007/math-teens-favorite-school-subject.aspxIt is also a straw man fallacy to claim that KA doesn’t promote conceptual understanding or will be counterproductive to conceptual understanding. A large part of KA is project-based learning, which media sadly don’t report on. For info, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AkSGR_oj0rg andhttp://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/6844033473/bringing-creativity-to-class-time-by-sal-khanGiven the proven effectiveness of project-based learning, a well-implemented KA curriculum will almost certainly work. Compared to the inconsequential and low-level projects normally implemented by many, KA projects (as seens in the above links) are more genuine, interesting, and meaningful. They promote interdisciplinary connections between math, computer science, engineering , economics, and the arts (see Vi Hart, who is in charge of this summer’s Discovery Lab). Failing to ignore these projects and the vision of KA as an tool to foster interactive classroom experiences is failing to understand what KA really IS. By only evaluating the website, a great disservice is done. Sal speaks about his ideal classroom experience herehttp://www.khanacademy.org/video/year-2060–education-predictions?topic=talks-and-interviewsYour claim that KA will prevent something better to come along is also wrong. It is through KA that people like Vi Hart and Brit Cruise (http://www.youtube.com/user/ArtOfTheProblem) are able to devote their careers to developing not only conceptual math/sci videos, but projects as well as part of the KA summer camp. From Khan’s vids, this summer camp will be a springboard to distribute meaningful and engaging math/sci projects over the web. Also, considering that KA’s plan is to open up the website to customization and production of videos/exercises, this will allow more materials to surface are be distributed. Expect more Vi Harts-type educators in the future and an outlet to share meaningful projects-based curricula.

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Scott

Thank you, We're really glad that you like the show and have found some useful info. Did you make it to China? Don't forget, tell your friends!!

Seriously, Thanks!
Scott