Posted on 02/17/2009 11:02:53 AM PST by reaganaut1
Watered down by fuzzy math, "whole language" reading and feel-good grading, public school instruction isn't what it used to be. Therein lies a great profitmaking opportunity: Supply the education that schools don't. Kumon, a Japanese firm that has been selling afterschool tutoring in its home country for half a century, broke into the U.S. market in 1983 and finds no shortage of customers here.
Kumon now has 1,300 centers and 194,000 students in the U.S., double its enrollment in 2001. That puts it well ahead of its two main competitors, SylvanLearning and Huntington Learning Center. Most Kumon students are between 5 and 11 years old and sign up to get reinforcement in the basics, such as arithmetic and reading. Kumon parents pay between $85 and $115 a course, which entails two months or so of several hours a week in a Kumon storefront center filling out worksheets, taking tests and getting them graded.
...
Schools don't teach math the way they used to, says Stan Au, a father of two children in public school in Essex Fells, N.J., where the average house sells for $1.3 million. "You can have great problem-solving skills, but if you can't multiply seven times seven, then you're stuck." So he pays twice to get his kids educated -- once via property taxes and again at Kumon.
While educational fads come and go, the company hasn't changed its philosophy since it began in Osaka in 1958. Ignoring calculators, it teaches math and reading skills in the most basic way--by rote. "These are skills you need; you don't have to be creative at this age" says Erika Liu, a Hong Kong native who lives in Los Angeles. Her son has been going to Kumon for eight years, since age 4.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
True, but it is good to see capitalism alive and well!
What the HELL does THAT have to do with anything???
This is true. It was because of that whole whacky notion that kids learn to read by reading, the same way they learn to walk, enabled me to start a small, yet successful, tutoring business. Reading, spelling, writing, grammar and math skills are so lacking out there that I had more students than I could handle.
If paid for my kids to be able to go into private schools after six years of home-schooling.
Too bad so many don’t get the extra help. It’s also a shame that we have teacher’s unions rather than a voucher system.
Given the math abilities of the kids I went to school with, it's no surprise their kids are now having to have private tutors.
Thought Kumon or Mathnassium might be good franchises.
“What the HELL does THAT have to do with anything???”
I bet the public schools there are not “underfunded”, but parents are still resorting to Kumon to teach the basics.
Easy checklist for real education:
Does the teacher’s union endorse it?
Yes - feggetabowdit. It won’t work.
No - High probability that it’ll work.
Remember, Obama’s best friend has a doctorate in education. That says it all about that degree, doncha think?
It means that even in the neighborhoods of the rich where the government schools are very well funded and the schools are allegedly “different”, the education provided is the proverbial crap sandwich.
Teachers don’t teach real math anymore. So if you want your kids to learn real math, you either teach them yourself or send them to Kumon.
What it has to do with anything is that the property taxes in NJ are sky high, and even in neighborhoods where the average home sells for over $1 million, the drowning-in-money public schools still can’t manage to teach the 3 Rs.
Yes, WE know that. However, I am not so sure that's what the author was trying to convey IMHO.
My son was in public in California from 3rd-8th grade, and now he is in a private high school.
My daughters have been in private since 4th grade, and they are now in 6th grade.
The only subject that I think the public school has taught better has been math.
My son is in 9th grade and he just took the PSAT. He’ll take it 2 more times. He scored 64 out of 80 and better than 95% of sophomores that have taken the test.
I don’t like the math program at all for the private school my daughters are in. I am constantly having to help one of my daughters figure out her homework. The problem is that the teacher doesn’t have her specialty in math, and it shows.
Got my 8 year old a dart board, he has to add, multiply and subtract his arithmetic is getting better and his aim is improving!
Much. It means that the neighborhood is middle to upper middle class and that parents probably care about their children’s education. It also means that the schools are not cash starved, like they might be in poor neighborhoods.
(Schools are (mostly) funded from property taxes)
Money is NOT the reason children fail in public schools.
I used to frequent a pizza place in the same strip mall as a Kumon center in a wealthy area of New Jersey. Most of the kids I witnessed coming and going from that facility were Asian Indians or other Asians. I only counted one or two Caucasion kids.
So if you wonder why “American” kids can’t do math and the Asian kids do better in college and get higher paying jobs, this may be the reason.
I couldn't agree more.
Kumon is working for our 7 all most 8 year old grandson.
He is very smart and very bull headed like his dad and can bluff people that he knows all about the subject, when he doesn’t.
His teacher last year let him get by with his bluffing, and the bluffing stopped with his teacher this year. The teacher and principal suggest enrolling him in Kumon.
He is motivated with Kumon, does his homework and bugs his parents to get him class early. In December, he tried his bluffing with the Kumon teacher, and it didn’t work. He is back to basics without the bluffing.
He and his older sister attend what is considered one of the best elementary schools in N California.
For decades, teacher and coaches have had the same problem, not enough time with each kid to get them up to speed and over the basics. We sent our 40 something sons while in highschool to private music lessons, football, baseball, diving and wrestling camps and private driving schools. That enabled them to be better than most of their peers.
His sister doesn’t need Kumon, but she has needed the special camps in soccer and basketball. She has dropped the basketball and has become very good in soccer in both defense and offense.
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