Out of 1.5 million students who took the SAT in 2009, 40% were minorities, an all time high.  In addition, more than 25% of students indicated that English was not their first language.

Historically, the majority of students taking the SAT were Caucasian which led many to discount the test as being biased towards this one group.  The College Board makes every effort to create current SAT exams that do not discriminate based on ethnicity.

In 2005, the College Board made a major revision to the SAT by removing analogies which they believed could favor students from specific socioeconomic backgrounds.  The analogies section also encouraged students to “cram” before the test to memorize as many vocabulary words as possible which ran contrary to the desired goal of the test.

The “new” SAT also included a written essay which the College Board believed was an integral part of a high school student’s eligibility to move on to college.

Based on recent data, from ACT test scores (out of 1.48 million tests in 2009), only 23% of American high school students have the necessary skills to go to college.  This means that 77% of students are behind in English, reading, math, and science as determined by the “College Readiness Benchmark.”

If they didn’t make us take math in school, would we still need tutors? The answer is yes and yes. Of course!  Even if you don’t struggle with English, science, or languages, most students encounter some type of math though their course of studies that quite simply baffles them.

For most people math starts to get tricky after pre-algebra.  Something about solving for an unknown variable just seems to be an abstract concept when you’ve been doing arithmetic and word problems from grade school until about 6th or 7th grade.

Don’t feel bad because you’re not alone. Many students in middle school or high school have problems with math.  Most adults still have problems with algebra or anything beyond, for example, geometry, trigonometry, or calculus and need private tutoring.

We’ve had people call us who are in their 50s needing to take a test that requires basic algebra and they just don’t remember because they haven’t used it since they were in middle school or high school.

Well it’s that time of year again when kids start getting ready for school again. Oh how I used to dread the end of summer, the end of fun as I knew it. Every time I got back to school though, I realized how much I missed all of my friends and I actually enjoyed having a little structure and god forbid, learning something!

This is a great time to start looking into tutoring options: centers, online, or services.  Tutors tend to get booked up early so now is a great time to get things lined up and start to build a relationship between tutor and pupil so that when things do start to get tough and assignments pile up, the tutor can easily jump in and help get a handle on things.

With jobs hard to come by in the United States during the current recession, many professionals are turning to tutoring as a way to earn extra money and to make a difference in their communities.  With budget cuts going on in school districts around the country, many qualified teachers have recently been laid off and are looking for work.

At the same time, because schools are cutting teachers from their payroll, class sizes are going up and student performance is suffering as a result.  In the wake of this, tutoring services are booming.

One of the reasons why we started our tutoring program was that in many families in the United States, both parents work.  Often mom or dad will be gone until 6 or 7 p.m.  Instead of sitting around and watching television, it makes more sense to use the time constructively to work on homework.

We saw a really big need in communities nationwide for tutors to come in while parents were still at work and help students with their homework.  While we don’t require it, we usually recommend that at least one parent be present for the first 1-2 tutoring sessions to make sure they feel comfortable leaving their son or daughter alone with the tutor and that it is a good fit.  Another reason for a parent to be present is so that they can be more involved in goal setting and expectations for the student and tutor.