Title:
Stanley Kaplan: Remembering a Test Prep Pioneer
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Here is a question for a college admissions test.
Who was Stanley Kaplan? Did he A) start a test
preparation company, B) start the test preparation
industry, or C) die in August at age ninety? The
correct answer is D) all of the above.
Stanley Kaplan was an educator and private tutor. In
the nineteen forties, he began preparing students
for the Scholastic Aptitude Test, now just called
the SAT.
His parents were European immigrants who did not go
to college, and he himself was rejected from medical
school. He thought all Americans should have an
equal chance at the best colleges, not just children
of wealthy families.
These days, more students go to college. Yet
wealthier families are the ones best able to pay for
test preparation. Many programs cost up to one
thousand dollars or more, though some are available
for poor families.
Parents may hate the whole idea, but they feel
nervous seeing others doing it. Then, after college,
there are graduate admissions tests to prepare for.
How much do American spend on this largely
unsupervised industry? At least one billion dollars
a year, estimates David Hawkins at the National
Association for College Admission Counseling. The
research company Outsell puts the amount at two and
a half billion dollars.
The two biggest providers in the United States --
Kaplan and Princeton Review -- both operate in more
than twenty countries.
Thirty years ago, the Federal Trade Commission found
that Stanley Kaplan's program could raise SAT scores
-- but only by about twenty-five points. The
association for college admission counseling
recently found a thirty-point increase with Kaplan
and other programs.
Still, the group says this is not enough to make a
difference for most students. It might help some get
into a top college, but only if they have
above-average scores in the first place. The report
suggested saving money by considering "less costly
forms" of test preparation.
Now, more about our story last week on President
Obama's nationally broadcast speech to students. We
noted that many conservatives raised objections
before the speech. But in nineteen ninety-one,
Democrats accused President George H.W. Bush of
using the last such speech for political purposes.
Then as now, Democrats led Congress. They demanded
an investigation. It found no misuse of public money
to support the speech.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
