Experienced teachers and counselors at good secondary schools will tell you:
- A course should provide all that is necessary for mastery of the material. The student needs to pay attention in class, do the work, study, and meet with the teacher as needed.
2, Tutors are only needed if the student is struggling in a subject after doing everything in #1 above.
- Tutors or advance work in subjects in which a student is not struggling is a distortion of the high school experience.
- Tutors or advance work in pursuit of a desired grade, not learning, is a distortion of the high school experience.
- B’s are OK. “Needing” a certain grade or GPA is a distortion of what education is all about.
6, students need time in their day for family, down time, entertainment, sleep, friends, interests, sports, fun, reading, daydreaming. Filling all waking hours with academics is unhealthy and counterproductive in the long run.
- The race to an “Ivy” is a fool’s errand that shows little understanding of what college is or does.
So summer jobs are “brainless jobs”?
My kids get plenty of school-year interaction with “being around smart peers” in their $40k/yr prep schools. It’s the summer job where my kids get practical life lessons. They get an appreciation of how real life works, and they form bonds with people from different socioeconomic classes. They learn elbow grease work ethic. They don’t need more of the Ivory Tower.
Given the summertime choice between being in a clean classroom or working a menial, grimy job, they pick the job.
@PrimeMeridian
“Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.” 
It was never personal. I said let’s respect other people’s choices. But I have never let nor do I plan to let my own dd take any Summer academic camp, be that review, preview, or college courses. The only things I would recommend to her are arts, language immersion, and those elusive prestige science research programs until she finishes high school.
Maybe if she really wants I will change, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. If she wants to review or preview academics she can self study free at home.
If the kid actually asks to attend these preview courses over the summer, then go for it!
But we’ve never heard our kids ask, “Mom & Dad, can I take Calc this summer so I can retake it in school this fall?”
I learned as much working at a gas station summer job as I ever did in a business, psychology, sociology, or history class.
@julian16 Regarding post #176: Take a look at his link. Title is ‘2016’s Most and Least Educated Cities.’
( Notice that for Most Educated a city in Michigan is #1. Also top ten cities in Dairyland Wisconsin and Bigamy Bounteous Utah and my home state, Genderbending Bathroom North Carolina.)
There’s more to the USA than NYC and Boston and San Francisco…all wonderful touristy cities by the way.
https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■/edu/most-and-least-educated-cities/6656/
Should be ‘this’ link. (Sorry, I am a half-literate Southern boy, with Mr. Faulkner’s picture and a 1960’s diva’s name).