What’s a cram school?

[Anonymous]

I see cram schools referenced on many threads, including the current Magnet lottery thread. What’s a cram school? Are we taking outlets like Russian math and Kumon?

[Anonymous]

You would probably get a better answer asking the question to the people in those threads?

To me a cram school is a for profit / tutoring program that is focused on getting a student ready for a test. Like an AP or an SAT. Not really about particular subject. Just focused on improving a test score.

[Anonymous]

It's the flip side to all the fake equity arguments in the magnet threads.

[Anonymous]

It’s a imaginary school that people use as an excuse of the inequality claim. For-profit tutoring programs exist mainly to satisfy the needs of anxious parents. It doesn’t help students more than free programs such as khan academy. Funny nobody thinks it’s unequal if one student does khan academy while another doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

My own opinion is that the phrase "cram school" typically refers to a tutoring program that is utilized by first generation immigrant families and are mainly advertised by word of mouth within particular immigrant communites (a plus is one that comes to mind that is popular with east asians).

Kids do these programs not just as test prep for the county magnat programs but also as an extracurricular activity. because it is popular with the parents of their social circles (and a better use of money than sports).

I would not characterize the franchise type places (Kumon, Mathnasium, Russian School of Math, etc.) as "cram schools".

[Anonymous]

Cram schools have been around for decades. Heck, there are some in Rockville that have been doing ACT, SAT, CoGAT, SSAT/ISEE prep for 15-20 years

Khan Academy's test prep offers are really, really recent offers.

[Anonymous]

It’s a school that teaches the coming year’s subjects over the summer so that kids can achieve As in the classes during the school year. I know of one that many Asian kids attend. They also do intensive standardized test prep.

[Anonymous]

They teach whoever enrolls. And they do it very well. Not just Asian students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the flip side to all the fake equity arguments in the magnet threads.

as opposed to the many sincere equity arguments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a school that teaches the coming year’s subjects over the summer so that kids can achieve As in the classes during the school year. I know of one that many Asian kids attend. They also do intensive standardized test prep.

Go to the AAP forum and just ask in a TJ thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a imaginary school that people use as an excuse of the inequality claim. For-profit tutoring programs exist mainly to satisfy the needs of anxious parents. It doesn’t help students more than free programs such as khan academy. Funny nobody thinks it’s unequal if one student does khan academy while another doesn’t.

I actually do. I grew up in a family where this never ever would have been encouraged (or possibly even allowed, as my time was pretty occupied with work and chores). My spouse was sent to a for-profit tutoring facility because his savvy parents understood they needed to invest in test prep to improve his outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Cram school comes from Flushing Queens.

Literally the Chinese kids would cram intro crappy makeshift school rooms above Chinese restaurants.

The cram school literally has syllabus for kids let’s say 10th grade and the text books. They would literally summer after 9th grade cram the entire 10th grade courses and tests into one summer. Then kids would start 10th grade ahead of every one.

My friend went to one. No AC, no electronics 9 hours a day all summer four years.

[Anonymous]

The "cram" part of "cram schools" isn't about the facilities. It's about cramming as much info into the student in the shortest amount of time.

There's a wikipedia article about cram schools:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cram_school

From the article:

A cram school, informally called crammer and colloquially also referred to as test-prep or exam factory, is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools, or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term "cramming", meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time.

Cram schools may specialize in a particular subject or subjects, or may be aligned with particular schools. Special cram schools that prepare students to re-take failed entrance examinations are also common. As the name suggests, the aim of a cram school is generally to impart as much information to its students as possible in the shortest period of time. The goal is to enable the students to obtain a required grade in particular examinations, or to satisfy other entrance requirements such as language skill (e.g.: IELTS). Cram schools are sometimes criticized, along with the countries in which they are prevalent, for a focus on rote learning and a lack of training in critical thinking and analysis.

[Anonymous]

One side of me is really, really impressed at the investment of time, resources and effort.

The other side doesn't think it is possible to compare these kids to the ones that spent the summer helping their uncles weed lawns, paint houses, and do a thousand other handyman jobs that MCPS kids actually do to help their families pay the rent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One side of me is really, really impressed at the investment of time, resources and effort.

The other side doesn't think it is possible to compare these kids to the ones that spent the summer helping their uncles weed lawns, paint houses, and do a thousand other handyman jobs that MCPS kids actually do to help their families pay the rent.

One side of me thinks this is an innocent post. The other side knows that this is just an attempt to dehumanize and create racist stereotypes.