<p>Why do people care so much about other people using tutors? Really, I think if someone feels compelled to excel by taking time and money for a tutor, they deserve the benefits they reap as a result. Honestly college conf people, this is a unnecessary discussion</p>
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<p>Forgot to put the smiley face after my statement…except for special circumstances (searching for the elusive full ride), 20 is too much!</p>
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<p>$35K is less that one year’s tuition at a private school.</p>
<p>THe problem with the tutoring is mostly that in some schools in some areas, that becomes the norm – that everyone in the class has seen the material before – and then your child basically can’t take the course unless you hire a tutor for him because the pacing of the class is different. ("OK, since most of you have seen this before, I"m just going to move on; We’re not doing the problems in this topic on the board because most of you seem pretty bored by it . . ")
When we lived in Fairfax County, Virginia I had a THIRD GRADE teacher tell us that our child was the only kid in the class who didn’t have a tutor for advanced math, and that most the other kids had completed the textbook over the summer. Essentially, my son was failing by October and we couldn’t afford tutoring so we had to remove him from the class. It just seems a shame when there are classes that kids can’t afford to take because they can’t afford outside resources – and it’s a public school. It was the most expensive public school we had ever encountered – and no one warned us going in that this was the new normal in Fairfax county.</p>
<p>My son prefers to walk into a class where’s he skipped the prerequisite and is at a supposed disadvantage. He actually does better this way, because he spends less time daydreaming, which can lead to missing small but important details.</p>
<p>Honestly, most classes are taught at a snail’s pace, based on international standards. While a really smart kid can learn at the speed of a “quick review,” even an average smart kid should be able to do fine by just sitting down and carefully reading the book. This is really a matter of motivation, and tutors are mostly for kids who can’t motivate themselves (I’m not talking about participation in major competitions, just school work).</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about this. </p>
<p>I have a middle school kid who was placed in a double accelerated math class last year. While clearly my kid was good enough at math to be placed in the class, she was doing poorly relative to her (all very bright) classmates. Math was a struggle for her, and she began to hate it. </p>
<p>This year, my husband, who happens to have an advanced math degree, began tutoring her when she needed it…so when she didn’t understand something the teacher went over, he would reteach it at home. Now she has gone from struggling to As and A pluses on every test, and says math is her favorite subject.</p>
<p>We are lucky enough to have a “built in tutor” in our house, so should my husband not be helping her? Does it make any difference that he is her father and not a paid tutor? </p>
<p>Sure, I’m jealous of people who can afford to pay people to help their kids with everything, and I recognize that those kids might not be where they are without that help. Kids don’t always learn best in the classroom, or a teacher’s style might not be right for a particular kid. But I don’t know if I think it’s unfair to get a kid help…because that would be like saying their own parents shouldn’t help them either.</p>
<p>ReadytoRoll - I dont think the issue here is kids getting help (either from their parents or tutors, etc.). I think the main thing that people on here are frustrated with is the fact that kids who really don’t need tutors, extra classes, etc. are doing these things just for the sake of being even more competitive which effectively is now forcing everyone else to do it just to stay at parity (i.e. turning things into an arms race). </p>
<p>At the end of the day though, as annoying/unfortunate as the circumstances have become, there isn’t really anything you can do about it. You can either decide to play the game or not (if you can afford it)…is it unfair? Yes…but that’s life. The same argument could be made about private schools/prep schools which are, generally speaking, superior in terms of opportunities, quality of education, connections, etc., etc. to public schools. Again this creates a competitive advantage for those that attend these schools…at the end of the day you cant do anything about it either than decide to enroll your kid in one of these or not.</p>
<p>Also, our state-mandated curriculum is so large now that the teachers have a tough time covering everything. One solution is to assign a lot of time-consuming projects and at-home work which requires self-learning and/or parental teaching. The workload can become overwhelming at times for kids and parents alike.</p>
<p>Thus when a child has taken one or two of those classes already over the summer, such that the child is merely reviewing it during the school year, this can really provide an advantage to him. The student is able to dedicate more time to his other courses, and also will have more opportunity for school-year extra-curriculars. At the present time, my D and the kids in her middle school grouping are being bombarded with work like this. All of us are exhausted from the late nights, and frustrated at the lack of sleep and EC/leisure time for the children. My friends’ kids have already dropped clubs and activities in order to handle these demands. This can be a drawback for their ultimate accomplishment in those endeavors.</p>
<p>When S2 was in elem school, the kids did not learn the multiplication tables at school. It was the stated expectation that parents would do it at home. Talk about creating a gap between haves and have-nots – there it was, in second and third grade.</p>
<p>Looking back on this thread, I missed another option in my summary post #176.</p>
<p>5) Avoid the crowd. Develop an uncommon interest/passion and demonstrate achievement. Elite colleges don’t need another AP Scholar, but they may value a student who leads frequent neighborhood block sale to support school’s free lunch shortfall. They really don’t care if you are in the NHS, but they may be impressed about the cost saving proposal you submitted to your town on formalizing street cleaning as a credible community service for your high school classmates. </p>
<p>For my son, it was breakdancing to help the homeless. He organized a team of kids from several local high schools and they dance on the streets for charity. He told me it felt great to exercise and put on a show for people, and at the end put money in the hands of the homeless so they can buy a good meal and share the fun.</p>
<p>This may be #6. Try to get your kid into a feeder school to the college you want to attend. For instance, Milton academy appears to be a feeder for Brown. Find out what sports Brown recruits like women’s gymnastics. Of course, Milton is an expensive prep school that many can’t afford, but you get the idea. Work backward from the college your child wants to attend. See what schools they take kids from. Find out what type of talents they are looking for and if that’s in line with your child’s strengths and interest, develop those.</p>
<p>We found that the school curriculum was not always effective, so we obtained materials (such as textbooks using a different approach than that used in the classroom) to supplement as necessary. This began when our first started school at a time when “whole language” was all the rage. Parents were urged to trust the curriculum, but many of us surreptitiously saw that our children ALSO got thorough phonics instruction at home. Teachers who caught wind of parental assistance often began to blame any difficulties a child had on the parent’s involvement, so parents tended to be quiet about this.</p>
<p>The downside was that when our home-instructed children soared on standardized tests in fourth grade or so, the school saw this as validation of their approach. When schools hold themselves out as “experts” who do not need parental feedback, they really sabotage themselves. </p>
<p>Aside from this, we found it was helpful - not just for college admissions but to have an idea of what they wanted to learn once they got to the university level - for our children to develop hobbies that set themselves apart from the crowd and that linked into subjects taught at a university level. This required a good deal of time not structured by loading up on extra classes or organized EC’s, and a willingness on our part to take them to places where they could learn more about their hobbies and interact with adults who had similar interests.</p>
<p>ReadytoRoll: Of course it is fine for you or your H to help your D with math. There is nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>CountingDown: The gap is not started in the second or third grade, it starts long befoer the that. If two people with similar values (re education and work ethic) agree to form a family and have children and to set aside their personal interests to benefit their kids - that is when the gap starts. There a re a lot of kids in schools who have one parent or both who care more about themselves than their kids. Tutors won’t help them so much. Life’s not fair.</p>
<p>So in our district, you could then draw the conclusion that Asian parents love their kids more and are less selfish than non-Asian parents. D’s math teacher just published the list of the 30 kids who made the first cut for the math team. There is not one non-Asian child on the list, despite the fact that they are not the majority ethnic group.</p>
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<p>That’s a funny comment…it’s definitely NOT that Asian parents love their kids more and are less selfish. This is just a cultural difference, generally Asian parents will force their kids to study A LOT more than non-Asian parents. I remember back in grade school, say we have 50 math problems assigned for homework, that most of my Asian classmates’ parents would have their kids do the homework questions and then would get supplement books and force them to do another 200+ problems per night. That’s a cultural thing that relates back to the way Asian (particularly Chinese) education systems works. Secondly, I’d argue that the parents are being MORE selfish. In many Asian culturals, the parents will force their kids to study, force them into a certain profession (generally one that makes money) so that in the end their well off children can take care of them in their old age.</p>
<p>**as a caveat, these comments were not meant to be judgemental/critical of Asian cultures. Just pointing out that generally, cultural differences are what are driving the phenomena that theGFG is seeing in his/her district.</p>
<p>TheGFG–you can’t always go by names. Our last name sounds Asian but we are Jewish. (And the name is actually neither!)</p>
<p>I always got a laugh when my kids were on the math or quiz team. I just knew people were expecting another Asian kid, from the names listed.</p>
<p>I also think different families value different forms of success. For some families, it’s important that small kids get involved with organized sports. For some it’s making friends and getting along with everyone. For some it’s religion. For some families it’s doing well in school. In others, it’s being intellectually curious. All this starts at very young ages, and there’s not really a consensus as to which are the more valuable successes.</p>
<p>glido – I agree. It’s just that the school system throwing down the gauntlet at a make-or-break stage in school seemed pretty out of line with their stated goal of closing the gap in test scores between ethnic and economic groups.</p>
<p>Just wanted to comment that “being intellectually curious” does not always translate into better grades. In my D’s case it translates into exasperated teachers answering questions with: “that’s not part of our curriculum.”</p>
<p>The gap does not start in school! It starts with prenatal care–the number of women who use drugs and alcohol during their pregnancies is greater than most people realize. The next gap comes when kids are exposed to language (or the lack of it). Do their parents engage them in conversations with rich vocabulary or do they put them in front of a tv and use a limited vocabulary that contains many 4 letter words? Yes, this is a reality for a very large part of the population. Can we say these parents are selfish? Perhaps, or is this a function of how they were parented and their lack of education? Yes, life is unfair. Schools need to work to get these kids up to speed–but it is often at the expense of the kids whose parents did/do all the right things. </p>
<p>In the end I think it is the parent’s responsibility to look out for their kids education. I also think it is the parent’s responsibility to teach their children to have integrity and to be a good citizen. I’ve met plenty of kids who get into top notch universities without having a laundry list of EC’s and 2300+ SAT’s. The people that believe otherwise are missing out on enjoying their children and that may be the most unfair thing of all.</p>