¶ Jenny Anderson’s front-page article about parents who supplement their children’s already expensive private schooling with private tutoring has rocketed our temper into Fulmination Mode, but we shall try for self-restraint. What’s wrong with private tutoring? It’s an absolute insult to the private school. A child in need of remedial education is probably at the wrong school. A child honing marginal advantages over fellow-students is a sociopath. A private school charging fees of upwards of $50,000 per year ought to be expected to provide everything needed. It ought to expel students whose parents doubt its ability in this regard; and it ought to create an atmosphere in which mechanical overachievement is manifestly objectionable. Private tutoring in private schools is the sort of thing that leads a friend of ours to shrug off the brouhaha by dismissing the schools themselves: “I thought probably they were just breeding pens for the type of human who eventually goes to Yale on the suspect credentials that they provide.”

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2011 at 10:30 am.