Sunday, April 15, 2012

New York City’s Tutoring Industry Grows With Competition for Admissions - NYTimes.com

New York City’s Tutoring Industry Grows With Competition for Admissions - NYTimes.com:


Fight for Middle School Spots Enriches Tutoring Firms

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Left to right, Chloe Luk, Nicholas Lui, the teacher Paola Higuera and Harry Swanson at a prep course at Bright Kids NYC.
As their parents sat anxiously in a waiting room, five children were sharpening their test-taking skills in a tutoring center in TriBeCa, underlining words that might hold clues to the answers and crossing off the illogical multiple-choice options intended to trip them up. For homework, there were more practice problems.
The tutoring business has come a long way from Stanley Kaplan’s basement in Brooklyn, and test-preparation courses for college or private school admission are practically a rite of American education. But in New York City, where even seats in public schools can