Kumon Centers Sprouting in Westchester? (New York, York: 2015, theater, elementary school)

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

If the public schools were fantastic, why would there be a strong need for Kumon centers?

Education Reform and the Asian Values Debate
(website) Education Reform and the Asian Values Debate

In Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, tutoring businesses are popping up like mushrooms in the forest after a rain. The Kumon Math and Reading Center near the local elementary school, for instance, promises to “give your child the academic advantage to compete in today’s world.” Unlike the nearby library, theater company, or nature center, this company does not complement the public school curriculum: it simply adds to the test prep that increasingly takes up the day for American children....

[newnewyorkers]

It probably reflects better parental anxiety more than anything else.

[trebler]

Originally Posted by newnewyorkers

It probably reflects better parental anxiety more than anything else.

Yep. The point of Kumon-style test prep isn’t to replace the existing classroom, much less (as the author of the linked article seems to believe) to game the latest NCLB testing mandates. It’s to turn a B student into an A student, or to wring out an additional hundred SAT points, via long hours of repetitive drilling.

This is just the latest example of the time honored phenomenon of affluent-but-anxious parents trying to give their kid every possible leg up. Now they can spend their money on East Asian model cram schools instead of private tutors. Plus ça change.