"The race to the Ivy League starts early," writes Asia Grace in the New York Post. Affluent parents are hiring tutors for their toddlers to give them an edge in kindergarten and beyond.
One New York couple is spending more than $2,000 a month on a three-times-a-week tutor for their 3-year-old son, who also attends preschool, and 16-month-old daughter. The children are learning some Spanish and how to identify colors, shapes and animals, writes Grace.
Remote schooling during the pandemic was a boon for tutors.
Beck Goodman, a Teach for America alumna with a master's in education, started working with preschoolers during the pandemic. She now runs a thriving business for families who "want to give their kids an academic head start.”
She charges an average of $300 per weekly 45-minute session to tutor children as young as 2.
Her typical tot session begins with “a conversation about their day, then we review a specific subject we’ve been focusing on — so if we’re learning letters, I’ll hide letter cut-outs around the room and have them find each one.
“We might play a board game or card game, or we’ll do an educational craft [centered around] numbers, colors and measurements with scissors and glue.”
It's not just "type-A New Yorkers," writes Grace. Kumon, which operates nationwide, now offers tutoring to children as young as age 3, and parents are bragging about their high-achieving three-year-olds on TikTok.
I live in Silicon Valley, which is filled with very competitive, education-focused and affluent parents. There are multiple tutoring services available to prep children for the rigors of preschool and kindergarten.
We're not talking about kids with learning disabilities or students who have trouble with subjects their parents never understood themselves (math). These are children who'd learn red from blue and dog from cat with a little time with Mommy or Daddy. It doesn't take a master's in education to teach a kid to count to 10.
Taking kids to the zoo, aquarium or preschool story time at the library is enrichment. Hiring a tutor to drill them on cut-and-paste skills is crazy. These people will drive their kids crazy.