“Turn off the television, read a book, take an online course or pick out a video lecture from the public library. If your children see you learning a little bit every day they will grow to respect their education. That is SAT preparation.”

I came across this short article by Robert S. Siegel and thought it was worth posting. I hope you enjoy it too.

Back in January, an SAT test booklet was allegedly smuggled out of a test center in South Korea. The culprit then allegedly emailed copies of the test booklet to a student who was to take the same test a few hours later in the United States. To learn more about this story, read Kwang-Tae Kim’s article, which I found on Townhall.com.

I few people asked me to comment on yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article by J. Hechinger. I will make comments from two different perspectives.

Lawyer Perspective: The lawyer in me enjoyed discussing, with friends and colleagues, the article’s double standards, flawed assertions, inconsistencies, and contradictions. For the calls I received from some old friends, I thank Mr. Hechinger.

Educator Perspective: The teacher in me happens to agree with the article’s thesis wholeheartedly: Many families do spend way too much money on SAT preparation services that simply do not deliver results. This is exactly why I founded ePrep back in 2005. After spending 15 years as a teacher and private tutor, I decided to create a low-cost preparation product that would effectively and efficiently do two things: (1) help students increase their SAT scores and (2) help students prepare for the academic challenges of college and life beyond. I am glad to say that ePrep does both.

Today happens to the be the day that May 2nd SAT scores became available online. By noon, I had already received dozens of emails and phone calls from parents who spent around $200 on ePrep study programs that helped their children increase their overall SAT scores by more than 200 points on average. While “average coaching” may yield only modest results as Mr. Henchinger points out, “eprepping” with an expert certainly bucks the current trend.