Bargain Tutors Don’t Save Money in the Long Run

A number of my friends have been paying math tutors for their children for years. Their children are now in middle or high school, and they still don’t understand the math content that was covered by their classroom teachers and tutors.

I feel that my friends have wasted their time and money. After working with a few of these kids, it seems to me that their tutors fell short. The children, who are also my friends, have not learned the math they should know by now. They got more insight and confidence from one hour with me than from a whole semester with novices.

I believe that my friends were making the best possible decisions about their children’s math instruction that they could at the time. They simply did not know enough about math and math pedagogy to evaluate their tutors.

If you are going to hire a tutor, you should have higher standards and expectations than what is typical. As I have said elsewhere, tutors tend to be college students who know math, but not math pedagogy, or classroom teachers who know very little math beyond the grade levels they are teaching. You might only pay $40 an hour for such a tutor, but if you pay that weekly for an entire school year, then you have spent $1600. Hardly worth it if your child hasn't retained any math skills.

Like many math tutors, I made good money tutoring math when I was in college. At that time, I knew enough math to explain and help the students I was tutoring, but I knew no where near as much as I know now. Since college I have worked in the real world, earned a Master’s degree in applied math at UCSD, and done advanced doctoral coursework and research in mathematics education.

My approach, now, as a professional math tutor looks nothing like what I did when I was younger, and it is much more effective.

Find out more about my approach at www.ljmlc.com.