Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people really hire coaches to help their kids do well on the NNAT and CogAt??? That's crazy. I have heard about parents bringing their kids to education centers, hiring tutors, and buying workbooks. But, this is the first time I have read about parents hiring coaches. Now I feel guilty. I did not even tell my kid he was taking a test. I didn't prepare him at all. I guess I am old school. I thought these tests were supposed to assess a child's ability without preparing/training the child first. It is no surprise that local scores are so different from national scores.

That is why they need to use a higher standard for the AA program here. A parent on another thread said 97 percentile would be good enough in other parts of the country, but not here and wanted to know why. This is the reason: kids are "coached" so they end up getting higher scores than they would have without that help. The scores then can make it look as though they need a program that they actually don't need, so the base line score needs to be raised. They also take into account teacher observations of how kids behave in class, where the "coaching" has less effect.

They've needed to raise the base line score for years now. That was especially noticeable when so many of the current 5th grade class was admitted to AAP.

They need a way to identify coaching...maybe they can put an easter egg in the test..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, coaching kids for exams is routinely practiced in other parts of the world. In fact, instead of going to sports after school, kids go to tutoring centers.

Kumon!

Agree. Kumon.

My friend's kid has been in kumon 2x/week, every week for 3 years. Did not make the pool.

4 yrs back, my kid went to Kumon for 4 weeks and hated it. We stopped Kumon, inspite of the Kumon teacher claiming that if we do that (stop giving her $130 per month) he is gonna hate math from then on. Well, he aced nnat, cogat and is in aap and gets consistently high scores in math.

I'm glad i saved $130 per month and saved kid from gutting ku-moaned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, coaching kids for exams is routinely practiced in other parts of the world. In fact, instead of going to sports after school, kids go to tutoring centers.

Kumon!

Agree. Kumon.

My friend's kid has been in kumon 2x/week, every week for 3 years. Did not make the pool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people really hire coaches to help their kids do well on the NNAT and CogAt??? That's crazy. I have heard about parents bringing their kids to education centers, hiring tutors, and buying workbooks. But, this is the first time I have read about parents hiring coaches. Now I feel guilty. I did not even tell my kid he was taking a test. I didn't prepare him at all. I guess I am old school. I thought these tests were supposed to assess a child's ability without preparing/training the child first. It is no surprise that local scores are so different from national scores.

That is why they need to use a higher standard for the AA program here. A parent on another thread said 97 percentile would be good enough in other parts of the country, but not here and wanted to know why. This is the reason: kids are "coached" so they end up getting higher scores than they would have without that help. The scores then can make it look as though they need a program that they actually don't need, so the base line score needs to be raised. They also take into account teacher observations of how kids behave in class, where the "coaching" has less effect.

They've needed to raise the base line score for years now. That was especially noticeable when so many of the current 5th grade class was admitted to AAP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, coaching kids for exams is routinely practiced in other parts of the world. In fact, instead of going to sports after school, kids go to tutoring centers.

Kumon!

Agree. Kumon.

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, coaching kids for exams is routinely practiced in other parts of the world. In fact, instead of going to sports after school, kids go to tutoring centers.

Sadly, many kids in those countries have issues and problems that result from those practices. In addition to the great benefits for both physical and mental health, sports participation teaches kids lessons in perseverance, determination, hard work, how to be a contributing member of a group, and how to handle both success and disappointment. More school after school just cannot help kids learn many of the important lessons they will need to learn to be good men and women. Sports teach many of the important lessons that cannot be taught in a class.

As a bonus, kids do better in school when they are physically fit and healthy in both body and mind.

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, coaching kids for exams is routinely practiced in other parts of the world. In fact, instead of going to sports after school, kids go to tutoring centers.

Kumon!

Anonymous wrote:Do people really hire coaches to help their kids do well on the NNAT and CogAt??? That's crazy. I have heard about parents bringing their kids to education centers, hiring tutors, and buying workbooks. But, this is the first time I have read about parents hiring coaches. Now I feel guilty. I did not even tell my kid he was taking a test. I didn't prepare him at all. I guess I am old school. I thought these tests were supposed to assess a child's ability without preparing/training the child first. It is no surprise that local scores are so different from national scores.

That is why they need to use a higher standard for the AA program here. A parent on another thread said 97 percentile would be good enough in other parts of the country, but not here and wanted to know why. This is the reason: kids are "coached" so they end up getting higher scores than they would have without that help. The scores then can make it look as though they need a program that they actually don't need, so the base line score needs to be raised. They also take into account teacher observations of how kids behave in class, where the "coaching" has less effect.

Apparently, coaching kids for exams is routinely practiced in other parts of the world. In fact, instead of going to sports after school, kids go to tutoring centers.

There was an older Asian woman who set up her business at the Centreville library last summer. Every time we went in for books, she was sitting there with a different (always Asian) kid and with a cogat or nnat book.

Anonymous wrote:Do people really hire coaches to help their kids do well on the NNAT and CogAt??? That's crazy. I have heard about parents bringing their kids to education centers, hiring tutors, and buying workbooks. But, this is the first time I have read about parents hiring coaches. Now I feel guilty. I did not even tell my kid he was taking a test. I didn't prepare him at all. I guess I am old school. I thought these tests were supposed to assess a child's ability without preparing/training the child first. It is no surprise that local scores are so different from national scores.

In short: YES.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This reads like a cleverly disguised add for Coach Kathy.

Hmm, it doesn't actually appear to be all that disguised (or terribly clever either, for that matter)!

Haha...maybe I was being a bit charitable.

Do people really hire coaches to help their kids do well on the NNAT and CogAt??? That's crazy. I have heard about parents bringing their kids to education centers, hiring tutors, and buying workbooks. But, this is the first time I have read about parents hiring coaches. Now I feel guilty. I did not even tell my kid he was taking a test. I didn't prepare him at all. I guess I am old school. I thought these tests were supposed to assess a child's ability without preparing/training the child first. It is no surprise that local scores are so different from national scores.

Coach Cathy is actually pretty bad.
We had her last year and she was kinda dumb.
She only gave the answers to the sample questions but had troubled explaining them. I really doubt she really understood some of the answers.
I suspect she would score below 120 if she was the one given the test.

Anonymous wrote:This reads like a cleverly disguised add for Coach Kathy.

Hmm, it doesn't actually appear to be all that disguised (or terribly clever either, for that matter)!