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Learning continues at home

Kumon is a partnership between student, parent and Instructor. This partnership continues during extended periods at home.

The Instructor creates an individualised study plan for each student, and sends home the worksheets they are ready to learn next on their own. Instructors are also available for regular communication by phone, email, SMS or video messaging.

Students study their worksheets, daily. Parents encourage their children to complete their worksheets to the best of their ability. Parents then mark and grade the completed worksheets. While students do corrections, parents record the results on the study record sheet. (Ask your Instructor for a copy of The Value of Home Marking: A Guide for Parents and a record sheet .) This daily process will ensure student progress.

Self-learning

As students advance in the Kumon worksheets, they become more confident to study the content on their own. Kumon worksheets are structured to allow progression in small steps. This enables students to advance smoothly from easy to difficult problems.

When they encounter something new, they study the example in the worksheet, draw on previous learning and give it a try. They try, and fail, until they finally get it. This is how Kumon develops self-learning. Students come to expect the challenge of something new, and gain satisfaction in working it out for themselves. They develop a mindset that no problem is too difficult to attempt. Equipped with the skill of self-learning, students progress independently, at home, through their Kumon programme.

Home Study Guidelines

This guide is designed to support home study of the Kumon worksheets. Follow these steps to maximise the effectiveness of home study. If issues arise, don’t hesitate to contact your Kumon Instructor.

1. Establish a daily ‘Kumon time’

Study worksheets a little each day. Daily study ensures smooth steady progress. Approximately 30 minutes per subject per day is desirable or for as long as your child is motivated to continue. Establish ‘Kumon time’. Consider your family’s schedule and decide what time each day is best. While a time when a parent or a carer can be present to supervise is ideal, this is not always possible, nor entirely necessary. The most outstanding feature of the Kumon worksheets is that they are designed for independent, self-learning. Some days are busier than others and the unexpected can arise, but aim to be consistent. Establish a routine.

2. Create a worksheet study space

Set up a Kumon worksheet study space, free from distractions and disruptions such as the television, computers or excessive noise. A study space that is at a desk table is best. The space should have several sharp pencils, a sharpener, an eraser and a digital clock so your child can write their start time and finish time. This is crucial.

If possible, periodically check, to ensure they are concentrating. They should complete the set of worksheets without stopping.

3. Show interest and praise your child’s efforts

Show enthusiasm and interest in your child’s worksheet study. Check in to see how they are going. They will feel supported. If your schedule does not allow you to be present while they study, check and mark their worksheets as soon as possible. Acknowledge their effort to complete their worksheets.

4. Home marking

After your child completes their worksheets each day, mark them using an answer book and The Value of Home Marking: A Guide for Parents. Return them to your child as soon as reasonably possible. (We know you are very busy, and cannot always do this straight away.)

Answer books and the Value of Home Marking: A Guide for Parents are available from your Kumon Instructor.

5. Corrections

Once the worksheets are marked, your child makes any corrections, on their own, until all answers are correct. They should find the specific place where they made the mistake, and erase and correct only the part of the answer that is incorrect. It is best if corrections are done as soon as possible, but definitely before commencing the next day’s worksheets. It is more efficient for your child to make corrections while worksheet content is fresh in their mind. They learn from corrections and are less likely to repeat the same mistake on the next worksheets.

Never criticise or scold your child for errors. Making errors and then correcting them is a fundamental feature of the Kumon learning method. Rather, praise your child for doing their corrections and eventually achieving 100 percent on their worksheets.

6. Filling in the record sheet

In the record sheet: 1. Record the day of the month 2. Record the worksheet level, e.g. AI 3. Record the set number, e.g. 21 (If first page of set is AI 21) 4. Record the time taken to complete the worksheets, in minutes 5. Record the original scores, before corrections, for each worksheet in boxes 1 – 10 e.g. maths score of B, English score of 95. Please forward the completed record sheet as and when requested by your Kumon Instructor. The Home Recording Guide and record sheets are available from your Kumon Instructor.

7. Communication with your Instructor

Communication with your Kumon Instructor is a crucial part of home study. In order for your Instructor to be able to easily contact you, please let them know which times are most convenient for you and which mode of communication you prefer, i.e. phone, email, SMS. Please contact your Kumon Instructor should you need guidance or advice about your child’s worksheet study.

Kumon is a partnership between student, parent and Instructor. This partnership continues during extended periods of home study.

Reading to your child, listening to them read, or making sure they have books will help them to develop a habit and love of daily reading.

For reading tips and to discover much loved book titles for younger readers, visit: www.readtogether.com.au . For readers of all ages and abilities, visit www.kumon-english-rrl.com or download the Recommended Reading List PDF .

Maths Tips From Maths Insider

Quick tips and practical advice to help you guide your child to maths success.

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About Kumon – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It’s my post, “8 Things to Hate About Kumon – A Review”

Of course, if you’ve read my About page , you’ll know that I used to be a Kumon instructor. I ran a Kumon tutorial centre in the UK for 3 years.

But some Maths Insider readers have asked me,

“What is Kumon?”

You see, not everyone has heard of Kumon, even though, according to their official website, they have had 16 million students in 46 countries around the world.

So let me tell you about Kumon – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

Kumon is an educational franchise, originally founded by Toru Kumon in 1956

Like McDonalds, the franchising effect means that there are thousands of Kumon centres around the world, from Germany to South Africa and from The Phillipines to the US, all helping children with maths.

Each instructor, although trained by Kumon will bring their own personality to the program, some are rigid and some are flexible. The majority have never been teachers.

Like McDonalds, profit is the big motive. Kumon is worth over $650 million, made from charging $100 a month, taking 40% from franchisees, and employing young and poorly paid support staff.

Kumon students typically visit the study centre once or twice a week and are given homework to do for the other 6 days

At the study centre your child gets support from the Kumon staff and sees other children, all studying towards a common goal.

As a parent, you have to take your child to the centre, or arrange for the work to be sent to you each week.

You the parent have to “police” your child’s Kumon homework 5 or 6 days a week, and field the complaints of, “It’s BORING!”

Kumon is an “individualised” learning program – students only move up to the next level when they have mastered the work. Mastery is defined as speed and accuracy

Each student works through the program at just the right pace for themselves, and children will develop motor and concentration skills as they repeat the worksheets.

The repetition and the speed criteria in particular can be tough for children to meet.

Students can literally  get stuck at certain difficult stages in the Kumon program for weeks due to the strict enforcement of target times.

All Kumon students start with easy work relative to their ability

Student’s will find the work easy and will initially enjoy doing the worksheets.

The easy Kumon work eventually becomes not so easy, and then really rather difficult.

Doing 10 pages of questions like these, quickly and accurately is extremely difficult. Even Kumon themselves call this the Level D mountain.

Kumon Level D Worksheets

The Kumon program encourages independent learning

The Kumon worksheets explain and guide students whenever a new topic is introduced, therefore they can work independently.

Students can’t always figure out the work themselves, especially at the higher levels. At larger centres, it can be impossible for instructors and assistants to have the time to explain the work.

There are tales on message boards of students being driven to tears because instructors refused to explain work to them.

Want to know more about Kumon?

The  Kumon US or Kumon UK websites.

The Bad (actually more funny than bad!)

A mother enrolls herself  onto the Kumon program for 5 months, “I’m a Math Moron” – Slate Magazine

Donald Sauter, a former Kumon instructor spills all!  His Kumon contract was not renewed after he radically tried to change the system, he tells the whole epic story on his website.

Are you a parent trying to make the decision about whether Kumon is right for your family? Check out Maths Insider’s Ultimate Kumon Review

Share your good, bad and ugly Kumon experiences in the comments below!

More on Kumon:

8 Things to Hate About Kumon – A Review

Is Thinkster Math a Real Alternative to Kumon?

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

66 thoughts on “ About Kumon – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ”

Thank you for the colorful write-up! I will send people here when they ask about Kumon!

Your welcome! I’m getting a lot of visitors to my site who searched for “Kumon reviews” on Google, so there are definitely many people who want to know about the good, bad, and ugly side of Kumon!

It is very lucky to see your review through Google. We are planning to invest a learning center in Toronto for G1 to G12 students. For rapidly going into the business, we are thinking to use Franchise, and Kumon is one of them (Kumon, Oxford and Sylvan). My 13-years-old daughter hated Kumon very much when she went to it several years before so that I have to teach her by myself. Could you kindly give me some suggestions about this investment? I am just a math private instructor and I want to expend my private one to one tutoring to a formal business and I can hire other teachers to teach reading and writing. Thank you so much for your two reviews about Kumon. They may kill my decision to invest this franchise brand.

The advantage of running a franchise is that the company has a system that works and a brand that advertises itself, however as a franchisee you pay heavily for these. Setting up on your own is doable but requires lots of research. Try to find people who have done this before, but are in a different city or country so that you’re not a competitor. Investigate your local laws regarding setting up a tuition centre, check the costs for staffing, premises rental, materials etc. After you’ve done that then you’ll be in a better position to decide whether to choose a franchise or not.

The way to teach elementary student math must be different from those who teach high school math and the way to produce elementary math workbooks must be also different from those who produce high school math workbooks.

The main problem with the current many elementary math worksheets is they are oudated and do not have any new ideas. Young kids like puzzles, and they like games, they like cell phones but how do we incorporate all these what they like into math worksheets?

To just put a computer game on the computer is not the solution because it gives students a feeling that they are playing games not doing math. They do not improve math much by just playing computer games.

combine the subject of math, chess and puzzles all in one worksheet is the solution.

Hi Caroline,

I have to confess I too have never heard of Kumon. Thank you for your frank and honest thoughts on the company. It will definitely allow parents to have a better understanding and point them in the right direction for them to do their due diligence.

Thanks for the info,

Caroline~ Kumon is new to me! Your write-up is great fun to read! My kids are nearly high school graduates so we’re not needing this service. I’m glad I had a chance to read about it here, I’ll tell any of my friends who have children still at this age. Linda

Thanks for passing by Linda! I hope your friends will find the Kumon information useful. If your kids are keen mathematicians the Wild About Math website has some nice higher level puzzles.

Hi Caroline This has got to be the first blog that I have been on that is about maths. Well done. I am a teacher in Australia and have done my share of maths classes and had heard of Kumon. I will enjoy returning to your site to see what is going on here. McDonalds has a great maths site for students, not sure it is just an Australian site, are you familiar with it? Belinda

Hi Belinda! Great that you discovered Maths Insider! I’ve tutored the kids of my Australian ex neighbour before so I’ve seen that the curricullum seems similar to the US and UK ones.

Thanks for the tip about the McDonalds website. I’m currently researching free maths websites for an article, so I’ll check that out!

I have never heard of Kumon so thank you for sharing this wonderful post.

I love how broke down the pro’s and con’s about the system.

Caroline I must confess as well I have never heard of Kumon. But I do recognize when someone is passionate about a subject and really tries to explain the ins and outs of the topic discussed which I think you do very well. It was an interesting read.

Hi Caroline! the way you break down information in byte-sized pieces is exceptionally easy to comprehend and assimilate. Exactly like a tutor! I can relate to that, as I did tutoring too in my younger days… Yes, they’ve been very active in Singapore, with its tuition-crazy culture and ultra-competitive education system. Yasser

Kumon is new to me but sounds quite interesting. I am sure it helps many students to succeed who might have really struggled and failed often without this assistance. The negatives about parents having to take the children to the center and monitor the homework, donot sound like negatives – just good parenting skills.

I like the way you broke each aspect into the good, the bad and the ugly. You have made it so easy to understand and made your long blog post so easy to read.

Hi Dr. Erica!

I’m glad you liked the format of this post. As with many things, there is always a good side and a bad side!

I can see your point about ferrying kids to centers and monitoring homework, but even the most conscientious parent needs to choose the “sanity saving” option at times. That’s one of the reasons why I use a few online programs with my own kids (as well as ferrying them to classes and monitoring homework both on and offline!)

I’ve never actually heard of Kumon and maths was never my strong point at school. I love your blog, it’s different and unique from the blogs we usually see in TSA. Great to meet you and keep up the great work.

You should have a comment spam filter which I see on many blogs, it says something like… what’s 7+3? then they have to put the answer.

It would be funny if the person got it wrong wouldn’t it, lol

Thanks Gavin

Yes, not too many “maths” blogs on TSA, but still lots to learn from!

I have seen the arithmetic comment spam filters, they are cool, but I don’t want to put “non mathematicians” off.

Thanks for passing by!

Hi there, great article, hits the nail on the head!

I worked at Kumon for 4 years to find that only the rich, famous and desperate could afford to do it! But, somehow I managed to financially support my little sisters to do the math and english, by working there.

Whilst working there, I realized that my mental maths was so rubbish, having grown up at school with a calculator to hand. I worked in one of the best Kumon centres in the country with a real buzz and excitement, which made it all the worth while. She made us (staff) complete Kumon worksheets upto multiplication tables which paid dividends as now I pride myself with a Masters degree in MATHS lol.

And my two little sisters pride themselves with Masters degrees.

With all the boredom and financial frustration…it does pay off in the end, just it takes patience and motivation!

To all your math problem solving success Rakiya

Yes Kumon staff are encouraged to do at least some of the worksheets themselves – some of my maths phobic staff improved their mental maths skills once they realised marking the students worksheets was MUCH quicker without using the answer books!

My Kumon centre was actually a mix of the rich and famous and poor families who had scraped together the monthly fees.

Kumon does work but parents can certainly Do It Themselves with some guidance.

Cool that you and your sisters got Masters degrees as a result of your strong mental maths skills!

My son went to kumon when he was4 years and 3 months. Ever since he was born, he played 365 days per year in the park or playpen, unless he gets sick. He played 5-6 hours per day outside and it came to a point where I need to give him a little bit of academic learning. I went to kumon and boy did he fly like bird in the sky. He’s 5 years and 6 months old now, he’s ranked 68 out of 12000 throughout the USA. In three months time, he’s going to be ranked 1. By the time he starts kindergarten he’s done 6th grade math and will soon pick algebra. He still plays 5-6 hours a day out in the park. He does 10 page packet in 30 minutes and I don’t give him reward at all. Organic playing and over working him in playing outside really worked for him. 99% play and 1% does well for him. I let him play in the park until he succumbs to exhaustion, that is my motto until now. When we get home he draws for hours. He sketches very good. I only taught him math, I never introduced him to reading, but I was surprised when his pre school teacher told me that he read a whole book to his classmates, I was flabbergasted. If I teach him how to read, I thought I might over worked it so I just let go of the reading and just proceed with the math. I thought maybe he started picking learning habit because he was already bored running outside the park and playing 365 days a year.

Hi Eddy, my son is very much in the same situation, only that he is in Kindergarten already at 5 years and 6 months. He ranks 220 out of 12000 in Kumon and is currently in level C math. We only enroll him in math because we figured reading does not do him good as the answers are straight from the book – meaning even if you provide the correct answer but doesn’t match the answer book, you are wrong! Anyway, I have a feeling the ranking is done based on what grade the kid is in, pre-school/Kindergarten, and not by age?

Addendum, we never watched television at home.no tv at all.

My children have been in Kumon for the past 4 years. They love it. Like the first point said, “A lot depends on the instructor”. I would add, “And the child and parents”. One size does not fit all. I would suggest trying it. You can always quit if it does not. We have a wonderful, compassionate, patient instructor. He is indeed a great teacher. My children are academic. So may be that has worked out great for us. I am not sure I have seen an unhappy family at our center. If you are unhappy, talk, talk talk! and find a good solution. It is a good program. But it is upto the instructor, child and parents to make it work.

My daughter’s doctor recommended that I have my daughter to attend for Mat but after reading this I am not sure. On top of that, I have no idea what an alternative program would be where it is good and there is a minimum of the bad and no ugly. You are very thorough on Kumon but can you suggest anything else?

Hi Crystal, I really like some of the online maths program. You can read/watch my review of Maths Whizz here and Ten Marks is a good budget option. Also check out my post next Tuesday where I’ll be featuring some other great online maths programs.

I find it quite ridiculous when people mention how the Kumon instructors “are/or have not been teachers.” Most of the math is easy to a person who already knows it, so it’s irrelevant to bring that up. You don’t need a certified teacher to teach a 6-year-old what 2+2 is…

Thank you for that great write-up. As a former employee of the corporate side of Kumon, I’d have to say it is a great program if you have a great Instructor. If you’re not lucky enough to have a great Instructor, I’d save my dollars. I do not support the company, but I do support the franchisees.

Great article. Been looking for ways to help improve the math skills in our family!

i think that kumon is great. all my kids do the maths and english program. i think that it really helps them. the maths is far more beneficial the english.

Kumon is excellent. Repetition is key to any success; business or sport. Yes, its time consuming, yes its repetitive, but the results are worth it. Our 9 year old daughter has been enrolled in Kumon for 2 years adn she excels at math and reading.

I’ve been a math teacher for the past 23 years and I’ve come across many students who have been to Kumon. Unfortunately the students I’ve met come out of Kumon knowing little to nothing about math. As has been mentioned, some centers will have magnificent results, but most don’t. There are many people who know their math. In fact there are many math teachers who know their math quite well, but it seems that there are few who can teach it and even fewer who make the students feel good about themselves when they make a mistake. If you want your kids to learn their math, you have to make sure you teach them. Make sure they know the multiplication tables before grade 6 level. You will be amazed at how easily they will pick up concepts like fractions and algebra. I say again, their are some good Kumon centers out there, but you may have to pay hundreds to find out if the one closest to you is one of them.

The article is propaganda! There is nothing good to kumon! Although the work may be helpful, they give too much and there is no tolerance in slack! Kumon has these report cards given out every week and after a child is through with a work sheet the parent needs to correct it! By the time the packet is in it needs to be 100% correct. Also the price is too high! You pay close to 100 us dollars a month! That’s outrageous! Parents, hear me Kumon is not for your kid. Zhao Ching father of 2.

We just made the difficult decision to give one months notice to remove our kids from Kumon. They are rising 3rd and 5th grade and have both been doing it for 2 years. I must say – Kumon can be an excellent program with the right instructor. Our 5th grader was struggling with learning math facts 2 years ago and after much hard work (and tears) his grades really shot up so much that the teacher wanted to know our secret. After 2 years, he finally made it over “the D mountain” which is the huge sequence of long division problems. However, his teacher was extremely rigid and inflexible and made him repeat the sequence THREE times. I am talking about a 60+ sheet sequence three times… After the first time, he wasn’t doing it fast enough, so he repeated it a second time. We had a conference to discuss it – and missed one or two sessions after that, but his time was perfect – and she decided to have him repeat it again. To say that this was demoralizing to him was an understatement. All the while, his school studies had moved on way past long division… So literally, he was working on fractions and decimals at school, while at night he was repeating the same long division packets for Kumon. He was easily spending 4 – 5 X the time in homework for Kumon. Then, when he went to school, he wasn’t understanding the concepts they were teaching. All of his focus was getting through to Kumon. As a result, his grades dropped. This is one very negative thing about Kumon – it doesn’t follow the school system. So, if your kids class has moved on – guess what? Kumon hasn’t. So, in the end they will know the subject much better, but the grades won’t be reflective. This has happened to us twice in the program. I was sticking with it until my 8 year old daughter reached “the D mountain.” Our daughter is extremely advanced, well over grade level and she is nationally ranked in Kumon for her age. Last week the center director had her in there for over 2 hours. We finally pulled her out – and she said that while she was in there, she had asked to talk with us and the director refused to let her talk with us. She went to the bathroom crying because the director refused to let us see her. We were in the waiting room – we had no idea. She told us that she was trying to escape to call 911 because she felt like a prisoner there. After that, I emailed our center director and gave her notice.

Math supplementation is one thing – but this experience was quite another. We had been paying $220/month for this “treatment.” I have decided to order the workbooks from amazon and manage the supplementation at home without having to go get abused by a center.

At the end of the day, our kids need to be motivated by the desire to learn, and not motivated by someone of Asian or Indian descent standing over them with a ruler in one hand and pointing a finger at them with the other.

You lost me in your last paragraph. What does the instructor’s ethnic origin have to do with it? Would it have been okay if the instructor had looked like one of your parents?

Kumon is an awful learning center. How would doing a large amount of homework that is, in most cases, completely unrelated to school lessons, help the student? It would only overwhelm him/her and foster a hatred towards learning. Yes, it’s true they want the kids to teach themselves, but that may be a little rocky. Strong early education is essential to being able to teach yourself in the future, so in elementary and middle school, you do want someone to “hold your hand” in teaching. You need a strong foundation to build off of for the future. Kumon does not provide that. And in later middle school and high school years, regular schools provide so much homework that any additional work will be extremely stressful for the child.

THIS WAS MY EXPERIENCE: I MADE A REGISTRATION FOR MY 7 YEARS OLD SON ON MONDAY (5/7/2012 @ 79-43 Metropolitan Ave, Middle Village, NY 11379) AND I WAS GOING TO PAY THE OTHER FEE AND ONE MOTHN PAYMENT ON FRIDAY (5/11/12) WHICH WAS THE DAY A PICKED TO MY SON TO START THE PROGRAM. SO, FROM MONDAY TO FRIDAY I SPREAD THE WORD TO ALL MY FRIENDS ABOUT THE PROGRAM COZ I WAS VERY EXCITED FOR MY SON. AND BECAUSE OF THAT I HEARED AWFULL REVIEWS ABOUT THIS PLACE INCLUDING ONE MOTHER WHO WORKS ON DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. I DIDN’T HEAR NOT EVEN ONE GOOD REVIEW ABOUT THIS PLACE. SO I DECIDED NOT TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THE PROGRAM. I MADE A $ 50 REGISTRATION FEE ON THIS PLACE AND I WAS TOTALLY AWARE ABOUT THE NON REFUNDABLE REGISTRATION POLICY. HOWEVER, I JUST WOULD LIKE TO ADVICE FOR ANY PARENTS OUT THERE TO BE 100% SURE BEFORE ENROOL YOUR CHILD ON KUMON PROGRAM. DO YOUR RESEARCH AND ASK FRIENDS BEFORE ENROOLLING. I LEARNED THAT IS NOT WORTH IT BECAUSE WHO REALLY DOES THE “JOB” ARE THE PARENTS. BESIDES, I RATHER PAY A LITTLE BE MORE FOR A TUTOR WHO WILL BE FACE TO FACE WITH MY SON (IT MAKES MORE SENSE TO ME). ALSO, I’M TRULY BEEING HONEST WITH THIS REVIEW AND I MUST TO SAY THAT ALL THRU I DIDN’T TRY THE PROGRAM MYSELF DUE TO BAD REVIEWS AND EXPERIENCES ABOUT THE PROGRAM. IT’S WAS MY CHOICE NOT TO MOVE FORWARD.

Hello Caroline, My son currently attends a Kumon center in Coral Springs,FL. Overall I’m happy with his Instructor/Teachers & the work he receives. My son was in the 6th grade at his time of enrollment so far its been about 6months. He’s in the Montessori Magnet program at school which leaves with a large work load. In addition to Kumon.

I enrolled him in Kumon b/c he was having trouble with his algebra work in school.

I’m glad he likes Kumon. Secondly, I dont have to stay on top of him inorder to complete his assigments,he understands the concept of time management quite well; However I’m really contemplating removing him form the course b/c the tuition is alot I pay 130.00 per month just for Math not mention I’m a single mom. I was wondering if Kumon centers offer any type of tuition assistance programs that you are aware of?

Hi Vonna, You’d need to ask your Kumon centre about financial aid. When I was an instructor in the UK it was up to each instructor if they wanted to offer a discount (which would come out of the instructors pocket, not out of Kumon’s profits) Have you looked at any online math programs? They are a lot more affordable and because you’re not ferrying your child to a centre each week, there’s more time (and money) to do other activities. Search Maths Insider for my posts on online math programs and another post titled “If Your Child Hates Kumon Try This” Kumon is only really worth doing if you stick with it for at least 1-2 years, so make sure you look at other options to see if it is the best option for your child in the medium term.

Continuation>> Kumon is a good program and has helped his math grades they went form C’s to B+’s but know he is in the 7th grade and has a good understanding of Math. So know he wants to learn Karate. Decisions Deceisions I guess I have decide between his Kumon and Karate if no help is offered to parents for tuition.

Please Help!

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I was so glad to see this review and I think I will stop searching Kumon center for my kid. I was trying to locate a Kumon center in Vaughan Ontario. After i called the center located i maple. Nobody called me back after I left 2 voice message. Then I tried to call Kumon Canada, I was asked to leave a message. What kind of business are they running? Seems a lot of not qualified/professional people.

We have 2 boys which love school and are lucky enough to have things come easy. Kumon has kept them challenged when school does not. I agree there is not as much time spent on theory as a normal math class so we have to explain a few things on the side and they see the topics get repeated in school anyway. After two years in Kumon we have a happy fifth grader doing algebra and third grader working their way through fraction addition/subtraction. And we never have to pull out a calculator during shopping when they are along. Not much I can complain about. :-)

I agree completely! I had my daughters in Kumon for years, and though I have to admit it was good for them, now that I’m tutoring I can see so many advantages to having one-on-one instruction by highly qualified teachers.

My son has been going to Kumon for the last 2 years and seems to have really gained from it especially in terms of having a daily routine of sitting down to do the work. It also helps that the center we go to is pretty pragmatic in terms of moving kids to the next level when they think they’re ready instead of making them repeat material they already know. Having said that, I don’t think Kumon is the only option out there today. The Kumon method doesn’t work with all kids and I know people who also seem happy with other programs such as Aloha and Singapore Math. We actually did a comparison of some of the math programs in terms of method, time commitment etc. Here’s the link if interested – http://www.schoolsnmore.com/articles/article/53-what-s-the-right-formula-a-look-at-kumon-aloha-singapore-math-and-vedic-math

Kumon instructors are not regulated by the government????

I have heard of how great Kumon is, where the syllabus teaches consistency and repetition. I decided to teach my daughter (started Kumon workbooks at the age of 2.5) by myself, since I think I can handle the syllabus. I don’t think Kumon center is truly required, because I have heard that the instructors are there only to guide. I see alot of improvement in my daughter’s math where by at the age of 3 she can write upto 120 numbers. She goes to a daycare, and the teachers were surprised by her academic achievement. I like the idea where Kumon workbooks can help a child progress in their own time and space, and become excellent at the subject. Alot of the things my daughter learn from Kumon workbooks become second nature when she applies that knowledge in school. I buy varieties of Kumon workbooks (not just math).

My sister has been a Kumon instructor for many years now. I have partly financed her center and helped her build and assist her in runing her center for many years since the passing away of her husband, my brother-in-law. The income from the center has helped her raise her family single-handedly and put her kids through college.

In my humble opinion, the relationship between the company and the franchisees has always been good. The company has been instructor friendly until certain misguided individuals like you Nicole Smith set up the IAKF and misled my sister among other franchisees.

My sister, as with many of her fellow instructors has been constantly bombarded with factually incorrect and false information from the IAKF for many years. Unfortunately, if she speaks up against the IAKF in instructor circles she is admonished by elements of the IAKF within the area. I have advised my sister to stay away from this association. I truly believe that education of the students at her center is of primary focus. However, IAKF representatives within the area keep harassing her to arrange an activist meeting at her center. Even Area Managers of Kumon have informed us that the IAKF is a rogue organization that has been spreading lies and misinformation only to increase their membership. From my sister’s interaction with fellow instructors, rumors have come to her attention that the IAKF and its leadership aka Nicole Smith and an instructor from Minneapolis, Houston and New Jersey who are vocal militant members have been using membership dues for personal gain.

Recently, I read an article where Robert Lichtenstein, corporate counsel for Kumon North America, based in Teaneck, New Jersey, calls the IAKF a “rogue” organization, and questions whether it has more than a handful of members. Kudos to Robert for rightly categorizing this organization and its leadership as “ROGUES.” The IAKF has brought nothing but shame and bad publicity to all Kumon instructors like my sister and has created a confrontational relationship with the franchisor. Thanks for listening. Xie Xie!!

I am a student in Kumon. To tell you the truth at first I despised it. Now I am in 6th grade taking GEM(which I believe is because of Kumon and it is a program which you do advanced math). I find GEM very easy because I already did almost all the curriculum that they are going to teach. I wasn’t surprised when I got a 96% on my pretest for the year only disappointed that I got a question wrong. I wasn’t like this a year ago and I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Kumon. However people with different thinking styles cannot see the beneficial side of Kumon. I am used to working hard because I had to learn english when I came from India when I was 5 , but some people didn’t have to face a big problem so working hard will be new for them. Your review can tell many people if Kumon is right for them or not. I was looking to se if Kumon is right for my 5 yr. old brother or not and it definitely is.

My parent pulled me out of Kumon, finally. My instructor is a horse farmer full-time and part-time Kumon instructor. Stay away from the Kumon center in Howell, NJ.

Kumon Sucks. I was enrolled 3 years ago by my parents because the 2 week free trial was over. Before, when i was level B, i thought it was quite easy even though I’m doing 10 pages everyday. Then things started to get tougher. Too much repeats, Too much pages. I am now level J and it is just so hard. I sometimes can’t do my homework because I must also do my projects in school. These days, I am told that I’ll do 2 hours per week but my teacher does not want me to go so i spend 3 hours. I also do 30 pages a week compared to the recommended pages per week which is 21. Worse, I just don’t know what to do. I ask my teacher and all he gives me is a book with the solution and he doesn’t care if I get it or not. The prizes they give every bow and then aren’t worth it, they’re just cheap plastic toys that break instantly in a touch. And every year, everyone who is advanced to what the school teaches, they give a medal. But that is totally not worth the time, money and effort done. So my life in Kumon is really really hard. Please, anyone reading this note: DO NOT GET YOUR’E CHILD INTO KUMON. That 2 week free trial? Its just a trap to get customers in their multi-million dollar business. My parents don’t want me out of Kumon and they regularly get mad every now and then because I can’t do my homework. Sometimes, I even think that Kumon leads my grades down because Kumon only teaches what to do and not how to do it. And it also gets me down because the stress it gives me is very very bad. I just hope that the readers out there don’t get their children into Kumon. It will ruin and change them until they either quit or finish after around 5 years

Kumon for my children was a very bad experience, almost as close as you can get to child abuse at the Kumon Math & Reading tutoring center. I would like to warn any parent who is thinking about Kumon to first read the reviews about Kumon. I should have read the online reviews before buring $3300 on Kumon:

http://www.pissedconsumer.com

The Kumon Math & Reading tutoring centers need to be investigated by Child Protective Services arrest the owners of the Kumon tutoring centers. It is a scam and the people who tutor at the centers are thieves and abusive people. STAY AWAY FROM KUMON.

Ok, so as a parent I think you have had enough Kuomon to have the basics of math drummed int you and, I agree, talk to your parents about signing out and show them what a good student you are by getting good grades at home. Strike a deal with them, such as, “Look mom and dad, sign me out of Kumon and let me prove to you this fall (or spring) semester that I can get As in school without it.” Most so able parents will take this. Tell them to also take that Monthly Kumon fee and apply it to their retirement, such as IRA or life insurance. And then due good on your promise. I am not against Kuomon, by the way.

I wish I forced my daugther to stay at KUMON. She was lazy and didn’t want to do the work. My friend send her son and daughter to KUMON and now they eneded up in IVY colleges. It pays to go to KUMON. Yes it is boring and hard on parents but it will pay off when your childern are very successful. Kumon is great if you can afford it.

Kumon has not been very positive at the get go. One I don’t like the lady who runs the place. side note: All of the Kumon centers are individually owned/operated & are VERY competitive with each other…

1) it’s expensive, over $100 per, so it’s over $200 a Month for both english & math. 2) it’s never ending…. NEVER ending. do you want to spend 12 yrs there? umm no. you cant just do it for the summer, or school year. it’s all year around

kumon is definitely not for everyone i ve met parents who shudder at the mere mentioning of the name to parents who think you are are a psycho for putting your child thru it but having been in kumon since september 2011 when my son just turned 3 its been the best decison ive ever made hes a gifted child who was already adding and subtracting so i had to do something to let him thrive on his skills , hes been doing fabulously well the advantage to starting early is no matter which center you start they know the kid and you my instructor has been wonderful , we do 2 sheets a day cause no matter how good a child is its insane for me as a parent to expect him to do and enjoy 5th grade math when hes in grade 1 in school im very much a hands on mom and i like the fact that they let you be so involved in your child s life and besides it take <60 sec to correct their work and they have an answer book for parents in case you arent sure !

I just stumbled upon this post and loved how it broke down the pro and con of Kumon. My kids both go to Kumon – my son for math and my daughter for japanese (Kokugo) and – to my surprise – they enjoy it! (of course there are some days they also don´t want to do their worksheets..) The worksheets for math are boring, yes, but it is not just about learning math. It is also about learning concentration and breaking down work into bit-size pieces to finish daily, instead of piling the work and then just give up. In Japan, there are many additional Kumon-workbooks available in bookstores which supplement the fun-factor. We usually do them at evening if they did the worksheets well. There are puzzles, riddles, stories.. Oh, and I have to say – we are lucky to have great instructors! At our local Kumon center everyone is kind, but also able to give the kids the motivation they need to continue. I recently found myself wondering if I maybe should enroll there too :)

Kumon is ok besides the stupid homework

I had my daughter enrolled since her primary age, and just completed her Level “O” after 9 years of struggling. To my opinion, Kumon is perfect for people who really wants to improve themselves in Math. Even my girl has gone thru upside down in completing it, she shown excellent results in every exam she took. Both parents and instructors had to encourage students whenever they are down, and parents please don’t get frustated easily when seeing their children give up. This also happened to me, when my girl started to complain that Kumon sucks, bored, and kept wanting to quit. But I did not give up, and in the end, she thanked me for it.

I am a child and I will do anything to ruin the kumon centers/ I hate it there so much , and the way the kumon lady says “kumon” OH GOD I hate it more than having been dared to eat a real spider ALIVE (I didn’t eat it) the place isn’t even considered a real place.kids 5and up already get homework from actual school .the graders are not even real adults. The lady probably doesn’t even have a license to own the place. The last level at that place and they just keep me at that level cuz they don’t want me to leave.they charge $110 a month for you just to do math I hate it here so should you if you have hates or trouble in this place. (I don’t even have to go here I get straight A’s in every class

Sorry you hate it. Maybe you get straight As because of Kumon having helped you be faster, more precise, and more organized? I am not a Kuomon owner nor have worked there. My two kids went to Kumon for three years and because of that their math and science grades were good. They were better organized. Now they stopped when they got older and let things slide. Think of this as physical exercise; you may hate it but it will make your body stronger and healthier.

Is there 100 pages of homework?

No , there isn’t. You get 3-7 pages a day, depending on a predetermined amount. Some parents like to get their money’s worth so they will have the kid do twice as many worksheets. A Horrible idea. Some kids will skip a day of Kuomon and then will have to do 2 packets in one day….this eventually becomes a habit. Sometimes they will do three packets a day, because they did not do Kumon for two days. This is where Kuomn gets ugly and unmanageable. Do not get into that situation as kids or parents. Do a package of Kumon in the morning before breakfast. Do not put it off. (I do not own a Kumon or work in Kumon by the way). I initially put my kids in Kumon when they were five and seven since I did not think their school did enough math, as what I had seen. I thought their math foundation needed to be stronger. Now my daughter is 17 and applying to college. She has been out of Kumon for three or four years. It was her choice to quit, but her math foundation is still good. My 14 year old son stopped Kumon around the same time as his sister. His math foundation is good but I am still finding Kumons in unexpected places and getting mad at him. He did have to repeat Algebra 1. The second time around he is doing better. My 10 year old did Kumon for a year but when his brother and sister dropped out, it was impossible to have him go. He was 7 at the time. He is definitely lacking in the homework discipline department and math basics. When you buy into Kuomon, you buy into a routine, an organized structure. When I do math or any other subject with my son now, it is sporadic, unorganized, and he is not the type of kid to enjoy school or learning. By the way, where I live Kumon cost us $140 per kid per month. It was slightly slightly cheaper if you paid quarterly or yearly. The same 10 year old I have also dropped out of piano after two years, chess after two years, and is only great at playing basketball. I love to watch him play basketball and enjoy it, but I did find comfort in that little hand writing neatly in a pencil on paper. His writing was much better at the time as well. Oh, and the same boy quit art class after three years. Kumon is not for all kids or parents. For one, it is expensive and a big commitment in time. The Kumon owner at our place was great and so was the person in charge; the rest of the staff were teenagers, but they were not slackers. If I had money and time and patience, I would definitely try Kumon with my son again. This must be what happens with the third kid.

I have had my two kids in Kumon for three years. There is a lot of monitoring and driving and enforcing them to do this. With repetition they become great and fast at math, at some point it becomes very hard. But doing Kumon for three years has taught my kids stamina, perseverance, ability to compute quickly and be able to apply it to other areas. There is a natural progression, takes 15-30 minutes a day. The bad part was finding all those hidden (undone) Kumons; I am still finding them all these years later, such as behind curio cabinets, ovens, drawers, beds. Sometimes a page torn out or a whole set. Kuomon is expensive for the parents and they need to treat it just like a private and expensive music lesson. If you are not monitoring those Kumons being done at home and not setting aside that 20-30 minute routine, the Kumons won’t get themselves done.

One more thing. Tablets are great, but so much of schoolwork even at young ages is some on computers or tablets these days that good old fashioned work sheets also get the hand writing. That does not happen a lot these days. Driving to Kuomon centers is a pain, but kids seeing other kids doing Kuomn there is a plus. It is somewhat of a community. You can’t see that in a tablet, even if you are practicing math in real time with another person located somewhere else.

Well you must have worked at a different kumon site Because I used to go to kumon And now I work there So some of this stuff is not true

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Should Your Kid Be Taking Russian Math?

It touts itself as the key to helping your child get a leg up at school and presumably into college. Is this just the latest case of wealthy suburbanites keeping up with the Joneses, or has a Russian woman in Newton figured out a better way to teach to American kids?

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Russian School of Mathematics cofounder Inessa Rifkin started teaching kids extra math at her dining room table in Newton more than 20 years ago. Today, the program has 40,000 students in 53 schools in 12 states, Washington, DC, and Canada, in addition to a booming online program. / Photo by Jason Grow

On a January afternoon at the Russian School of Mathematics headquarters, a 6,500-square-foot bilevel brick building in a Newton corporate office park, Inessa Rifkin leads 15 excitable third and fourth graders through a lesson on graphs. She is in her sixties and chic in a blue-gray tunic over a crisp white button-down, skinny black pants, and a Tiffany-style silver pearl necklace. When she asks a question, her Russian accent unflinching, more than half of the students put their hands in the air. Not a single one has a cell phone on his or her desk. No one’s staring into space.

About halfway through the two-hour class she asks, “Quiz or break?” The group is unanimous in its decision: Quiz it is!

For Rifkin, there are two reasons to celebrate: Not only have the kids willingly chosen a quiz, but just before class began she’d learned that the Russian School of Mathematics—the extracurricular K–12 program she cofounded with fellow Soviet Union expat Irina Khavinson in Newton 22 years ago—had surpassed 40,000 students. RSM has 53 locations in 12 states, Washington, DC, and Canada. Online classes already have students from 24 countries, and are growing faster than Rifkin’s son, Ilya, who is the CEO, can find qualified teachers to teach them.

As the school’s birthplace—but also as a particular hotbed of do-more, get-ahead parenting—Massachusetts is ground zero for Russian Math. Inessa Rifkin estimates that one in four elementary students in Lexington is enrolled in her after-school program; the majority of kids start in second grade and continue through at least eighth, though many go all the way through high school. “I remember we couldn’t believe it when we got 40 students that first year,” she says. Back then, she held classes around her dining room table, and the neighbors complained about the lines of cars coming and going. These days, RSM employs a traffic cop to help keep order during pickup and drop-off at the school’s flagship location, which can accommodate several hundred kids at any given time. “We never even considered ourselves businesswomen,” Rifkin says of herself and Khavinson, acknowledging that they didn’t have a proper business plan until 2009, when Ilya quit his job at a Manhattan hedge fund to join the company at his mother’s urging. “And in this business plan, he wrote we would reach 10,000 students,” Rifkin says. “I laughed. Ten thousand students? From where?”

A decade later, Russian Math is nothing short of a phenomenon. Rifkin and Khavinson have been approached by eager VCs several times over the past 20 years to invest or buy them out and have turned down every offer. Parents of students in Russian Math, meanwhile, note with pride that their kids are two or three years ahead of their peers in math at school, and the company boasts of students’ remarkable scores on standardized tests (a 774 average math score for juniors who take the SAT) and high GPAs in school. The lobby at HQ displays photos of alumni alongside their recent college acceptances: Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Georgetown.

Still, not everyone thinks the program is the best thing that’s happened to math education since flashcards. Critics say it has questionable academic value to children and is focused more on accelerating students than deepening their understanding of the material. What’s more, there’s growing concern that the significant proportion of students enrolled in Russian Math in some Boston suburbs is having a negative effect on the learning environment inside regular school classrooms. Some see RSM as less of a mathematical miracle and more of an example of savvy marketing colliding headlong into suburban parental panic. “In a prior age, if your child was having trouble in math, you’d hire a tutor, if you had the money,” says Jon Star, an educational psychologist at Harvard who researches math education. “But all these kids who are going to Russian Math aren’t going there because they’re having trouble in math. They’re going there because the public school is not going fast enough for what parents perceive their child needs. So it’s just a very different set of motivations.”

Such behavior can put even more pressure on kids who are already feeling unprecedented levels of anxiety—and on parents to keep up with one another, either for perception or for something to talk about at dinner parties. Newton mother of three Marcela Almeida, whose oldest child started at RSM in third grade, her middle child in first, and her youngest in kindergarten, found herself smack dab in the middle of the rapidly accelerating suburban mathematical arms race. She says she enrolled her kids in RSM even before she’d decided there was anything particularly wrong with the education they were getting for free at the public schools. “I felt a tremendous pressure from our community to send our kids to RSM,” she says. “It appears as though attending RSM is the norm where we live, so I didn’t want them to be behind.”

Irina Khavinson worked as a math teacher for 15 years in St. Petersburg before teaming up with Rifkin to found the Russian School of Mathematics. / Photo by Jason Grow

Rifkin came to the United States from the Soviet Union with her husband, Victor, and their two kids, Ilya and Masha, with eight suitcases and $90 in 1988. She got a job as a mechanical engineer at Kronos, a maker of labor-management software. Ilya was in eighth grade when Rifkin says she started to question his motivation in school. His grades were fine, but not great; she assumed he was being lazy. “So I looked at what he was learning,” she says. “The math wasn’t up to my standards. He did not know things I thought he should know by then.” The lessons lacked cohesive flow; they were disconnected from one to the next and the process focused more on getting to the correct answer than understanding how to get there. No wonder Ilya wasn’t motivated, she thought, and of course he and his friends all hated math—the material was prescribed, rote, and very dull. Rifkin started talking to other parents. “Slowly, I came to the realization that it’s not that he’s lazy,” she says. “He takes advantage of everything that’s offered to him. But not much is offered to him.”

Rifkin started tutoring her son and some of his friends after work using lessons she remembered from an elite mathematics school that she’d attended in Minsk. The kids seemed to respond, and she began to think of ways to offer lessons to even more students, envisioning a structured program with teachers who would demand respect from their students and a math curriculum that would make learning fun—and effective. “Not something where someone comes to your house and your child feels like, My parents pay you money so you do what I tell you to do ,” which could not be more American, she says.

Her first step: Find a teacher. “I started to ask around, ‘Who knows good teachers from back in the Union?’” she says. In response, a few people told her that somebody told them that somebody had mentioned a woman named Irina. Then 47, Khavinson had been a math teacher for 15 years in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad. In Boston, she was working as an accountant and tutoring kids on the side, using a mix of Russian textbooks and lessons she’d developed on her own.

In December 1997, not long after teaming up, Khavinson and Rifkin advertised a meeting at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley to talk about the state of their children’s math education. Six hundred people showed up, mostly Russian-Jewish immigrants. Rifkin stood before them and presented her idea for the Russian School of Mathematics. She talked about building a community based on a common need, a place where kids could learn math and play together, and parents could get acquainted with one another. She didn’t have to explain to fellow Russians why math was important. To them, Rifkin says, math is what puts minds in order. What’s more, for immigrant families, STEM is considered a lifeline and the pathway to success in the United States. “I said, ‘We know what good mathematics is. Let’s try to do that here for our kids,’” she recalls. One Newton mom, Olga Dadasheva, stood up and said she recognized the problem, but asked what made Rifkin think she was the one who could solve it. “And I said to her,” Rifkin recalls, “‘You pretty much don’t have any other choice but to let me try.’”

Dadasheva, who arrived in the U.S. from Moscow in 1989 and was working as a software developer, had been looking for math tutoring for her daughter, who was 12 at the time. “It’s easy to criticize American education in general,” Dadasheva says now. “But Russians in particular have this experience where it has to be hard at school. You have to work very hard and get great marks. And that was missing in American schools, where it was more like, ‘If you can do it, that’s great. If you cannot do it, that’s great, do it tomorrow.’”

That night at the temple in Wellesley, Rifkin and Khavinson convinced 60 students to commit, all children of Russian immigrants. Says Rifkin: “It was less a business than a movement.”

Once RSM students (and their peers) started to see the edge they had over the other kids in school, and the confidence that resulted, more kept coming—Russian students, but also children of Chinese and Indian and European immigrants, too. By February 1998, Rifkin had quit her job at Kronos, and by September of that year, RSM had enrolled 150 students and moved to its first commercial location on Beacon Place in Newton, a two-room space on the second floor, over a hair salon. In 1999, Rifkin took out a home equity loan to buy a small white house with blue shutters on busy Centre Street, onto which her husband installed a large sign that read, The Russian School of Mathematics. It was all the advertising they needed, Rifkin says. In no time, the first Americans started showing up.

Biotech entrepreneur Heidi Wyle was one of them. She and her husband had moved to Weston for the good public schools, she says, but teachers were not teaching math the way she thought they should. “We used to joke that in the Weston schools, it was like, ‘No child allowed ahead,’” says Wyle, whose children are now grown and in their twenties. “They were happy to handle the kids who needed help, but they didn’t want these kids who were really bright.”

Wyle was instrumental in introducing RSM to her circle of high-powered, highly educated friends, which included several parents who were professors at Harvard and MIT. But a 2001 article that ran on the front page of the Boston Globe , “A Russian Solution to a U.S. Problem,” was the key to drawing in American families en masse, Rifkin says. “The writer basically drove by on a Sunday morning and saw these kids playing outside the house,” she recalls. He stopped and asked a very cute kid, ‘What are you doing here?’ And the kid said, ‘I’m studying math.’ He said, ‘You’re studying math on a Sunday morning? Why?’ And the kid said, ‘Because I want to get smart and go to MIT.’” The morning after the story ran, Rifkin arrived at the little house on Centre Street to find a line out the door.

Teacher Irena Burmistrovich instructs a classroom full of engaged students. / Photo by Jason Grow

From the start, Rifkin and Khavinson developed the RSM curriculum in-house, taking some of what Rifkin had used to teach Ilya and some of what Khavinson had used with her students, and then put the first round of tuition payments they received into further developing the coursework. They relied largely on the network of parents gathered that night at Temple Beth Elohim to find Russian émigrés, many of whom worked in academia, to help create lesson plans that emphasized critical thinking and reasoning over memorization. Advanced concepts, such as algebra, were introduced as early as first grade, using age-appropriate approaches and lots of visuals, because according to Rifkin and Khavinson, studies show that kids who learn algebra at an early age have better cognitive development overall. They encourage students to reach calculus by 10th or 11th grade.

Still, Rifkin and Khavinson argue their strategy is not as simple as merely giving students next year’s work. The main difference between Russian Math and the math being taught in schools, they say, boils down to a methodology that emphasizes derivation over memorization—of learning the reasons behind the answers—and a visual approach that helps students “see” the math, and therefore understand it better. Russian Math students also put in more face time with teachers: Since most kids sign up for 90 minutes to four hours a week in concentrated blocks, they theoretically get a chance to understand concepts more deeply. Classes are smaller, too, averaging around 12 students, and divided by ability levels, which means that teachers can teach to students’ very specific needs in a way that public school teachers just can’t. “It’s almost like how you do athletics here,” Rifkin says. “It’s not for your child to become an Olympic finalist. Math for us is not to become a mathematician, but to become a good thinker.”

Wyle, whose kids had also tried the math-enrichment program Kumon but quickly lost interest, remembers being impressed the first time she took her then-first grader to sit in on an RSM class. “They were doing algebra,” she says. “And the way they did it would be, like, two kids balanced on a seesaw. And underneath one kid, there might be the number seven, and underneath the other kid and a weight is a number five. And then they would ask the students, ‘What does the weight weigh?’ and of course the kids would say ‘two’ because they could see it, right? Their whole approach was built around seeing the math, and I myself could sort of see quantum mechanics by the time that class was over. They were teaching kids to see and understand. Not just do.”

Most important, students seem to like it. Newton mom Ellen Chu and her husband initially enrolled their daughter in RSM because she told them she hated math. This year, she started her first year of college at Oxford, majoring in math and computer science. “I think my daughter came to love math because RSM introduced her to more-complex, nuanced math, which she found exciting,” Chu says. “Based on her experience, I think the school is trying to help its students think, problem-solve, and enjoy math.”

Meanwhile, Wyle says RSM’s teachers are warm and invested and create a tightknit community. “Even from the very early days,” she recalls, “when the kids got high SAT scores, when they were merit finalists or stuff like that, for the teachers, it was like our kids were their kids.”

Make no mistake, Russian Math can be an adjustment, especially for students who start when they’re older. Four hours of extra math every week is a lot, and there’s homework, too. Maria Rubio, whose two daughters attended RSM’s Framingham and Wellesley locations and who first heard about the program from a Polish mom at her kids’ bus stop, says her older daughter was moved up a level at RSM after a teacher there said she wasn’t being challenged enough. “The first year, the poor girl,” Rubio says. “They would give her stacks of hundreds of exercises just so she could catch up.” Rubio asked the teacher if she was really sure her daughter was ready. “She told me, ‘I’m not going to keep her in the lower class because, I mean, this is about challenging them,’” Rubio recalls. “‘This is not about anything else. She doesn’t belong there. She has to go to the other level.’ So she struggled but she made it and she became really, really fluent and now I always thank those big stacks of exercises.”

In another success story, Belmont’s Alanna Fincke sent her son to Russian Math last year as an eighth grader at his request. “For Jonah, the way they taught made more logical sense to him than the way it was taught in his public school,” Fincke says. He’d previously attended, and liked, Kumon. And yet, Fincke says, “There was something about Russian Math that just seemed like a challenge, and he really liked that.”

All of the kids I talked to said Russian Math puts them at an advantage in their regular math classes, where they tend to do better on tests—or, at least, they don’t have to study as hard to do okay. Rifkin believes that better grades aren’t all they’re getting: “Grades matter, but they’re also more confident,” she says. “I see this in the girls we teach, especially. They enjoy their smartness tremendously. They’re not shy of being smart, or of having a voice in class. I see them when they start with us and I see them when they leave us and they’re different people.”

Photo by Jason Grow

Not everyone is convinced, though, that there is anything particularly special going on at Russian Math, other than kids spending four hours a week—or more—working on arithmetic. (In Jonah’s case, his parents even hired a tutor to help him do better in Russian Math, which may be the next level of the mathematical arms race.) Parents may think it is helping their kids, but Harvard’s Jon Star says there is no evidence that enrollment in RSM translates into better grades in schools or better standardized test scores. What’s more, he takes issue with the idea that Russian math is somehow better than the math that’s taught in public schools. In fact, he doesn’t even think it’s demonstrably unique. Part of the RSM sales pitch, Star says, is that its coursework engages students more, and differently, than their normal school curriculum. But he says there’s no universal school of math in Russia that everyone’s following and that is significantly different from what is taught in the U.S. “I’d urge parents to be cautious with that claim,” he says, “because just because the teacher teaches math while speaking with a Russian accent doesn’t make it better.”

What Star suspects is really going on is that Russian Math is merely teaching kids the same math they learn in their regular curriculum, just earlier and faster—which he says is pretty low-hanging fruit in the world of math education.

Meanwhile, Hilary Kreisberg, director of the Center for Math Achievement at Lesley University and a former fifth-grade teacher turned math coach, says her experiences with RSM students have led her to question the claim that Russian Math focuses more on developing a deep understanding of math instead of memorization. In fact, she has seen the opposite. “From what I’ve seen, they come in well above their grade-level standards in terms of memorization, but not in terms of content understanding,” she says. “Many of them very quickly get to an answer or can compute in a fast way, but they can’t necessarily explain to me what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.” And explanations, she says, are a critical component of mathematics. “In public school teaching, we are very strictly taught that the goal is not to accelerate,” Kreisberg says. “The goal is not to extend their thinking into another grade level, but to go deeper with the current grade-level standards because there’s always more you could learn about a topic.”

Many parents, though, love the accelerated curriculum and feel it gives their kids an edge, not just in high school but in the ever more competitive quest for admission to an elite university. Every last one of the dozen-plus RSM parents I spoke with told me that their child was “way ahead” of their regular math class, which they viewed as evidence of a less-than-challenging curriculum and further proof of how far behind American math is.

Star and Kreisberg say this attitude is part of a misguided “race to calculus,” where the view is that the sooner a student gets there, the better. “It’s not about helping your kid get to where they should be in math to really understand the math deeply. It’s about going fast so you can get ahead of everyone else, with the perception that that helps. And for what?” Star asks. “There is zero evidence that it helps your child to take calculus in 10th grade.”

Parents of RSM students note with pride that their kids are two or three years ahead of their peers. / Photo by Jason Grow

Not surprisingly, the popularity of Russian Math has posed a significant challenge for schools, whose teachers now find themselves struggling with how to instruct an increasing number of students who’ve already seen the material. The range in students’ abilities in a single classroom has always been a hurdle for educators. Now that range—and the challenge—is far bigger.

Ultimately, it isn’t just an issue for teachers, but for the very kids who attend RSM. Many of them are bored in math class and have “lost their curiosity,” Kreisberg says, which is an essential part of math. “My experience with students who have engaged in Russian Math is that they oftentimes have this arrogant disposition of, ‘I already know this, I don’t need to learn it again,’ even though they might be missing foundational gaps because they’re so accelerated.” She continues, “They don’t want to learn a different way to solve something. They just want to get to the answer because they can. I have a harder time teaching those students than any other students that I work with.”

It isn’t just RSM kids whose learning in school is affected, but non-RSM kids, too, who begin to question their abilities even if they’re performing perfectly well at grade level. Kreisberg says that when RSM kids in class make rapid-fire calculations, the other students begin to feel they’re not good at math, and that to be good they need to be in the RSM program.

In the worst cases, the Russian Math kids are rude and disrespectful to their teachers. Chu recalls hearing her daughter describe a situation at her high school in which RSM students were constantly correcting and criticizing their regular school teacher. “The word my daughter used,” Chu says, “was ‘insufferable.’”

Kreisberg views the popularity of Russian Math as representative of a general lack of respect for teachers. “Who determines if a child is ‘too advanced’ for their regular school curriculum?” she says. “It’s usually the parents, who are not qualified educators. But they’re not going into hospitals and telling doctors, ‘Hey, you should use this more-advanced procedure because I read about it somewhere.’ Nobody questions what we do in medicine, but we question educators all the time because we don’t value our teachers.” While that’s likely not entirely true—medical professionals have complained about this very problem since the first season of ER —several parents did admit that they enrolled their children in RSM without ever bothering to talk to their kids’ school. “We realized early on that the school didn’t have accommodations for our daughters’ specific level,” Rubio says. “But we never asked the school about it. Because we had RSM.”

At the same time, many RSM parents and students seem to expect teachers to teach to their accelerated level, and at least some schools seem to be complying. According to RSM, Newton South has added new courses and additional levels of math or provided RSM kids with extra homework in order to keep these kids engaged (and their parents happy).

In most cases, though, teachers don’t teach to the RSM kids’ accelerated levels, presumably because they’re busy teaching the rest of the students who are learning on the normal public school schedule. Rubio says one of her daughters was separated out of class for a year. “They would give her a packet with some supposedly more-advanced stuff, and she would go out into the hallway with another girl and do work together,” she says. “And I said, ‘But what do you do if you have a question?’ And she would say, ‘Oh, I just ask [the other girl].’ And I said, ‘What if she has a question?’ And she said, ‘She asks me.’”

RSM also says that other towns, including Weston and Winchester, are taking more-extreme measures. They have started specifically asking parents to refrain from enrolling their children in the Russian School of Mathematics, something that only seems to spark more ire among parents—and which gets tricky when teachers from those districts are spotted dropping off their own kids there. (None of the schools mentioned in this article, nor many others contacted for this story, responded to repeated requests for comment.) Star thinks schools could do a better job communicating their plan for attending to advanced children’s math instruction needs, instead of just discouraging enrollment in RSM. “But maybe in some communities,” he says, “it already feels like they lost the battle.”

There is also the issue of elitism. RSM says that classes start at $20 an hour, which may be a handy way of making it sound affordable; tuition for most students is at least $2,000 per course. It is likely not a coincidence that its locations are all in upper-middle-class towns. According to a 2019 report about after-school math from Pioneer Education, all but one of the Massachusetts towns where RSM has locations have a median household income of $93,600 or more, compared to the statewide average of $67,800; five are among the 20 Massachusetts communities with the highest median income. While Kumon has partnered with schools in inner cities to provide its program to low-income families, RSM has no similar program. (It does, however, offer financial aid to 10 to 15 percent of its students.)

Chu says that in middle school, her daughter’s teachers were openly critical of RSM’s elitist nature, and Chu doesn’t disagree with them. Neither does Wyle, saying, “I understand why [the schools] would have that defensive position, because it’s tough for them when they have some significant cohort in their class who are getting this world-class math education, and then there’s everybody else. But from my perspective, I never would have been at the Russian School of Mathematics if it hadn’t been for Weston’s bad math curriculum.”

On a Saturday morning in late January, the lobby at RSM’s Newton headquarters has become the new soccer-field sidelines: Moms in Canada Goose parkas chat animatedly, clutching Yeti mugs, as sleepy kids shuffle into their respective classrooms. The parking lot is a showroom of Range Rovers and white Audis. “My God, we spent so much money on it,” says mom Maria Rubio of the years her two daughters attended RSM. “But it is amazing.”

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