Educational Supplements

It's not surprising that private alternatives are springing up, giving the increasing demands of the world economy, combined with the multidecade stagnation of the quality of our public schools.

Millions of American children no longer have the time to kick a ball around after school because they're already late for an appointment with the math tutor or a "study skills" lesson or cognitive skills training or Spanish immersion or "reading comprehension support" or academic enrichment of one sort of another.

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Educational Supplements

By MEGHAN COX GURDON
June 16, 2006; Page W11, WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115042420945582101.html?mod=taste_primary_hs

Back in the 1980s, when Japanese financiers gobbled up U.S. companies like so many Pacmen, Americans became unnerved. Japanese society seemed scarily focused: The discipline in schools was so brutal that a tardy child might be crushed to death by the doors slamming shut precisely on time. We heard about juku, cram schools where Japanese children went each afternoon after regular classes for three hours more of academic drilling; Saturdays, too.

Americans joked about how we'd all be carrying yen in our wallets someday, but we could comfort ourselves -- and people did -- by saying that at least our children were individuals. American childhood was to be enjoyed, not grimly marched through with joyless eyes fixed on getting into the Ivy League.

Ah, but will you look at us now? We're building a juku system of our own. Millions of American children no longer have the time to kick a ball around after school because they're already late for an appointment with the math tutor or a "study skills" lesson or cognitive skills training or Spanish immersion or "reading comprehension support" or academic enrichment of one sort of another...