Reply to NYTimes: In South Korea, Questions About Cram Schools, Success and Happiness

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m genuinely curious—does getting ahead really help?[/quote]

What does getting ahead really mean?[/quote]

It means you never walk into any class needing to rely on the classroom instruction. You could get an A on the final day one. More importantly, you never trust the US public school system to teach math or science. You learn it outside the system so that at higher levels you don’t struggle with gaps.

In the Bay Area, it is not uncommon for kids to start taking DE courses in 8th grade and have their GE, and DE major prerequisite courses complete with straight As along with the APs in high school to get the most rigorous check box by the end of junior year.

It also means that kids in public are competing with kids who have a second set of credentials. As it’s low cost to do this, they don’t trigger the pay to privilege box that other programs signal.[/quote]

The problem with those Bay Area cram schools is that they’re not really teaching the material. They’re helping kids get high test scores by drilling them on old exams they’ve gotten from different schools. That’s basically another version of pay-to-play.[/quote]

Are Bay Area cram schools really that much worse than DMV area cram schools?

There are literally dozens of cheap DMV area cram schools that leverage free things like Khan and AoPS with great results.  I don't think those are what you would call pay to play.[/quote]

Which cram schools do you mean? I’ve seen Kumon, Russian Math, AoPS, and Mathnasium, but I’m curious and apparently oblivious.[/quote]

Mathnasium is not a cram school.  It doesn't have any homework. That's partly why I picked it.  It's center based tutoring with an instructor working with multiple children at a time but on homework from school and assignments individually tailored to their gaps from a Mathnasium curriculum.  They share diagnostics and testing results but none of the curriculum material or in-center work is allowed to be removed from the center.  It's similar to about half of a typical public school math class.  The part after the direct instruction.

Kumon is more of a regimen with takehome work that parents need to enforce.  And it's less about ideas and approaches.

From what I understand the other programs you mentioned are for kids who like math and are willing to do more.  They are "stretch" oriented vs. remedial.[/quote]

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