Just the other day, I heard a commercial on the radio about an SAT prep course. In the commercial, the company offering the course tried to distinguish itself from other courses in only one way: It boasted that, unlike the instructors of other courses, each of its instructors received between 40 and 60 hours of training before being “certified” to teach.
Call me crazy, but 40-60 hours didn’t sound like a whole lot to me, so I asked around a bit.

• Bank tellers (the people who deposit money and cash checks) receive around 80 hours of training before they are permitted to work independently.
• Grocery store cashiers receive around 40 hours of training, which includes instruction in etiquette and the technical aspects of operating a register.
• Public school teachers, like art teachers and physical education teachers, go through pre-certification academic programs that can take between 1 and 4 YEARS(!) to complete.
• Personally, I completed a two-year master’s degree program that included 6 months of supervised student teaching before becoming certified to teach in New Jersey.

Okay, I’m not crazy. Training college kids for only 40-60 hours before sending them out to teach SAT classes is a complete joke. There is no way I would leave the SAT preparation of my three children in the hands of some unknown person with a mere 40-60 hours of in-house training.

ePrep for the SAT provides students around the world with access to yours truly, an Ivy-League educated master teacher and proven SAT expert with more than 17 years of teaching and tutoring experience. It is not really like me to toot my own horn, but I am getting tired of one-dimensional entrepreneurs in the education space. Teaching should be left to teachers.

Thanks for indulging me as I speak my mind.

One of the students who participated in last summer’s alpha test of ePrep for the SAT contacted me a couple of days ago. He shared the news that his SAT scores had gone up and he was recently admitted to Princeton University. Congratulations, Doug D. I guess we’ll be seeing each other at Princeton reunions for years to come.

Every year around this time, some people resolve to change certain aspects of their lives. “Starting January 1st, I will exercise more, eat healthier, be more patient, spend less money, etc.” Most new year’s resolutions are worth making because they involve some form of self improvement.

If your current list of resolutions includes any education oriented goals, like preparing for the SAT, I’d like to offer you some words of wisdom. DO NOT EXPECT OVERNIGHT SUCCESSES. (more…)