April 4,2018
by Anne LaGrange Loving on Facebook
Ridgewood NJ, Tonight during the Budget presentation, Dr. Fishbien spoke about the stellar SAT scores among Ridgewood High School students. When asked how many families pay for private SAT tutoring, he replied that about 40% of parents responded to a survey, and of those about 40% self-reported that they paid for private SAT prep for their children. I think that number is likely quite a lot higher. It seemed like everyone I knew (in the late 1990’s) was paying for Kaplan or Huntington or some private individual to help improve SAT scores. Depending on how high the numbers actually are, this could mean that the stellar SAT scores are more a reflection of wealth (or the decision to allocate funds toward this effort) than it is a reflection of the Ridgewood High School preparation of students for this standardized exam. Just wondering whether my thoughts on this are off base.
So you pay maybe $15K in property taxes,most of which go to the school system,. And then tack on thousands more to make your kid actually able to get into college. What a rip off this town is
The SAT definitely has been dumbed down on the verbal side over the years (e.g., 1. hard vocabulary words have been eliminated, 2. analogy questions have been eliminated, 3. more context is now being given in the text of the text itself to allow the test-takers to figure out on the fly what hard or unfamiliar words mean, etc.). As a result, many students can score much higher on the verbal SAT than in years past without having worked hard over the years (or even in the months prior to the SAT test administration) to attain and maintain an excellent vocabulary. So those students with top vocabularies are finding this is not as much an advantage to them as it was for SAT test-takers two or three decades ago (i.e., less proficient students are readily getting the same or close to the same scores as they are getting). It doesn’t appear, however, that this is the case on the math SAT sections. The math SAT is still very challenging. Perhaps many of the Ridgewood High School students benefiting the most from SAT tutoring are making up for not working as hard as they should have in math from grade 6 or 7 onward, or for having had teachers or lower level classes during those grades that didn’t challenge them or that didn’t prepare them adequately to score very well on the math sections of the SAT.
Nobody with kids will dare to say this on fb…..the schools suck.
Same as most other towns.
if you took the same poll at any middle class and up town you’d find similar results. it doesn’t have to be a one-on-one tutoring session. many parents supplement sat/act education. regular classwork doesn’t prepare you for these standardized tests
The same teachers that disown all responsibility for failing students in places like Newark, blaming parents for everything, are adamant that thay are to be credited for anything achieved by students in places like Ridgewood.
Go figure!
Top flight math students at RHS have almost uniformly been receiving math tutoring since they were pups. $$$–not cheap.
MANY of the teachers in Ridgewood have a sideline tutoring and make thousands of bucks apiece off the books every year. It is in their best interest to keep this side income going. I would love to see the figures on how much actual money is spent in this town every year enhancing the education of our students. I am betting it would be staggering.
There are many different kinds of students in the Ridgewood public schools, not every kid is brilliant and it is important that we keep that in mind. I paid for math tutoring for my daughter for many years, and that was just so she could keep up with the course material and be a ‘B’ student. When college tests came around, I paid the big bucks to prepare her, because she needed it. I think there is an idea that Ridgewood parents are tutoring their kids to become even more brilliant when some people’s reality is that they are paying tutors just to keep up. Would love to see the stats on those who pay for tutoring because they need it vs. those who pay for it for enrichment and to compete for the top tier of colleges.
I agree with 8:46 Anon – in our case we paid just so our child could get through Math and Chemistry. It was never about getting her to the top of the class. It was about passing the course with something other than a D. The tutoring was very helpful. It was also very expensive. And the school did nothing, NOTHING, to help her. She went for extra help (because like an idiot I suggested she do this) and she was told that extra help was not available and that she could get a tutor. Honest to God. And not just in one class. This was a math class as well as Chemistry. So, not an anomaly. My kid was not stupid, she has a great career now and a happy life. But our experience in the high school was very, very disappointing. Disgusting.
I just need to understand the ground rules here. Asking about who and what we pay our cops and firemen is attacking the cops but giving teachers no credit for teaching our kids is good citizenship?
Agree in part with 715am. Some teachers have a side hustle in tutoring, but I’ve witness more than a few referring to their connected friends tutoring and assorted lessons. When you inquire of them their rates, some take ‘cash only’. Parents, beware of teachers & guidance counselors who are quick to refer your child to outside tutors for big bucks because some of the teachers we already pay for can’t teach.
With only a few exceptions, just about all the high-scoring students at RHS in recent years had some extra tutoring, ranging from intensive to a modest supplement. The extent of the benefit from this extra tutoring can be debated but there is no doubt that it helps–especially if it has been consistent over a period of years and not a three month cram session. In that regard, RHS is no different than any other suburban HS.
Many people regularly spend $500++ per child per week on tutoring.
How does one spend that kind of money on tutoring in one week, 5:59pm?
Multiple subjects