Tell us about the test scores increased? Did you find similar results on the PSAT?
If your metrics are good, increasing test scores is the thing thats 100% going yo get schools on board
Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
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Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#72Tell us about the test scores increased? Did you find similar results on the PSAT? If your metrics are good, increasing test scores is the thing thats 100% going yo get schools on board
We ran a pilot with roughly 150 students in grades 6–8. Students who used Bloomy for one hour per week averaged 1.8x their expected winter-to-spring growth on NWEA MAP.
Our team was understandably energized by these results, and we plan to run several more pilots this fall to see whether we can produce similar gains across other student populations and assessments, including the PSAT.
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#73Alex, thanks for building this. I imagine it will help many children! Couple comments on this being 'screen' oriented, which are as you say endemic in schools and terrible. There's a fair amount of research that paper reading and handling and writing gets significantly higher retention than screen reading. Most especially physically writing notes, but generally comprehension is just higher for paper. Interestingly e-…
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. We’ve actually had a few school districts ask about paper workbooks, so this is already on our radar. Right now, students can move at their own pace and use a notebook alongside Bloomy, but we haven’t figured out how much paper or e-ink should be part of the product itself.
The VLM idea is especially interesting. It could let Bloomy see how a student worked through a problem, not just whether the final answer was right. We’ll definitely take a closer look at this, so I appreciate your recommendation!
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#74First of all congrats on the launch. I worked at an edtech startup with adaptive learning platforms in previous decades. One thing that is always difficult to surmount was that at the under K12 level were: 1. B2b it was hard to land large contracts(like getting an entire public school district to jump from large publishers like HMH or Wiley) because it turned out that the teachers themselves did not care about adapti…
OP this is it Almost all the founders who have tried to go into education have come out with similar thoughts. Schools are basically legacy companies with low nps products. It might do you better to vertically integrate as hard as that is
I agree that how we approach the market will be the difference between being successful and failing. At this stage, we’re focused on finding early adopters who have the autonomy to try a different curriculum and already believe mastery learning and AI tutoring are where education is headed. Based on that point, we are validating several B2B & B2C hypotheses over the next few months to truly understand where we should position ourselves in the industry.
As you stated, our primary focus is charter schools, but we’re also working with microschools, homeschool co-ops, and families directly. To make this as accessible as possible for families, we are an approved vendor in over 15 states, which allows homeschool families to use their ESA funds for Bloomy.
Our goal is to work with people who are excited to build this future with us and prove the model from there!
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is interesting, can you say more?
I think 383toast is talking about your landing page design which has very strong AI-generated design vibes (blue-green gradients, rounded rectangles with a colored border on the left...) There are a bunch of skills you can find online to improve on this if you want to keep designing with Claude, and the latest generation of models are better (Fable/GPT5.6). Check https://github.com/jakubkrehel/skills or https://githu…
I'll check them out, thank you for your suggestions!
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is interesting, can you say more?
I spent some time researching how to teach commodity LLMs to pose geometrically correct figures and challenges, for the purpose of teaching middle school trig. I originally wanted exactly what you've described here, using AI to unlock Bloom mastery. There's a decently large surface area I covered before shelving the project. Happy to share my lessons with you
That would be great. Please fill out your information on the below contact form, & I will follow up with you!
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#77Childhood psychologists are warning about giving Ai to children, very similar to social media and generally screen time. How does this factor into your business?
I just posted something pretty relevant to this in a different comment. Totally agree with the dangers. 2 important points: 1. Not all AI is the same. I see 2 MECE categories in education: AI that does all the thinking/execution for you (the outsourced brain), and AI that is designed to fulfill specific coaching/tutoring roles. If we design AI to ask great questions and find the Socratic thread with students, we can…
I agree that using AI as a "tutor" to help teach yourself things is very useful and works great, I've been doing that myself quite a bit. How do you stop students from being able to just use it as a second brain? I assume there's some sort of guardrails you have so it won't just give the answer? How do you ensure that there's an adequate amount of "struggle" that the kids are going through before just explaining the answer? I feel that that would be the challenging piece of the puzzle.
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#78Congrats man. I've been in edtech for the last 15 years. I was working on something similar (socratic method, 1:1 LLM student, skills based) but joined a company and had to shelve it due to a non-compete.
You've picked one hell of a time to enter the K12 market. 1:1 device backlash, AI tool scrutiny hightening, teacher exhaustion, no recovery in sight for the recent funding cliff.
Your pilot model is the way to go. My favorite tools all grew out of that model. Stay patient, listen to the early users, encourage them to spread the word. Dont' be above grinding it out at a table at some of the smaller regional educaitonal confreneces.
Sounds like you're already doing this but take IXL head on. They are ripe for the picking.
Good luck!
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#79Alex, thanks for building this. I imagine it will help many children! Couple comments on this being 'screen' oriented, which are as you say endemic in schools and terrible. There's a fair amount of research that paper reading and handling and writing gets significantly higher retention than screen reading. Most especially physically writing notes, but generally comprehension is just higher for paper. Interestingly e-…
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. We’ve actually had a few school districts ask about paper workbooks, so this is already on our radar. Right now, students can move at their own pace and use a notebook alongside Bloomy, but we haven’t figured out how much paper or e-ink should be part of the product itself. The VLM idea is especially interesting. It could let Bloomy see how a student worked through a problem, not ju…
I kind of nerd baited myself and have something building for remarkable right now; it's a fork of the riddle diary app for remarkable with spaced repetition and subject tracking. I'm curious how it will feel! drop me a line if you're interested and I'll let you know if I learn anything.
Re: Launch HN: Bloomy (YC S26) – AI-powered mastery learning for K-12
#80Congrats man. I've been in edtech for the last 15 years. I was working on something similar (socratic method, 1:1 LLM student, skills based) but joined a company and had to shelve it due to a non-compete. You've picked one hell of a time to enter the K12 market. 1:1 device backlash, AI tool scrutiny hightening, teacher exhaustion, no recovery in sight for the recent funding cliff. Your pilot model is the way to go. M…
Thank you! It's an interesting time for sure. In the face of all the headwinds, there are also some interesting tailwinds and opportunities:
-Shrinking budgets forcing reevaluation of longstanding contracts, especially those that provide single-subject or limited grade band solutions -A general awareness that, despite the uncertainty around AI, schools need to "figure out this AI thing" -School choice driving demand for mastery-based curricula among alternative educational options
I love a good regional conference.