Americans massively send their children to the Russian mathematical school: why is it considered the key to success in the future

At the age of 7, when most children in New York were learning to ride a bike and play video games, Natalya Latushkevich spent two hours a week pondering the principles of multiplication and algebra at the Russian School of Mathematics. The publication told more about this school and its founders New York Post.

“I thought my daughter could do more than what she was offered at school,” said her mother, Anna Latushkevich.

The 44-year-old Stanford graduate, data scientist and investor, enrolled Natalia in the Russian Mathematical School seven years ago for $3000 in tutoring, on top of the $30 a year for a private girls' elementary school.

“If she wants to be a doctor, an engineer, math never hurts. Math will improve our understanding of the world,” said the mother of four, who lives in Medina, Washington.

The last must-have for wealthy parents seeking to give their children all the benefits are Russian math lessons. They use a method developed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and favor reasoning, critical thinking, and abstract principles over brute memorization. Training companies are seeing a recruitment boom as wealthy families seek to infiltrate the Ivy League.

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“Money is everything,” a 40-year-old Manhattan mom recently revealed when she hired a Russian math tutor for her preschooler. She also paid a consultant to help her child get into a first-class private kindergarten.

The Russian School of Mathematics in Boston was founded over 25 years ago by immigrants from Belarus and Ukraine and now has more than 70 branches in the United States. Its first Manhattan branch opened in 2017 on the Upper East Side. Since then, two more offices have appeared there, and additional outposts have appeared in Battery Park, Brooklyn, and Scarsdale, New York.

“The growth has been steady,” said the school’s public relations director Masha Gershman.

Children can enroll from the age of 5.

“Earlier is always better, just like with any other type of learning,” Gershman said. “Mathematics is a tool for shaping a child’s thinking.”

The school specifically notes that it currently has no ties with Moscow.

“We unreservedly stand together with the Ukrainian people against Russian President Vladimir Putin, his regime and Russia’s war with Ukraine,” the website said in a statement. – We named our school to reflect the historical tradition of Russian mathematics that we all share. This is a tradition that exists even before the current government in Russia and will continue to exist long after it.”

Another company, Russian Math Tutors, is considering a name change due to the ongoing war. But founder Alexander Kolchinsky, who immigrated to the US from the Soviet Union as a child, sincerely believes the Russian method is better.

“In American schools, they start with simple tasks and work their way up to complex ones, whereas we start with difficult tasks at the beginning of the lesson,” said Kolchinsky, a former Silicon Valley software developer who launched his online learning platform in 2020.

Its program introduces XNUMXrd grade students to algebraic concepts. In most American schools, such ideas are not taught to students until the ninth grade.

However, some New York teachers are critical of tutoring.

“Children in Russian mathematics learn to count in their heads, so they often make mistakes due to inattention. They also make life difficult for other children because they begin to ask math questions that are inappropriate for their age, and other children feel bad, ”said an anonymous teacher who works at a private school on the Upper West Side. In addition, she added, "Parents argue with teachers that their children can do more difficult tasks."

Latushkevich has no problem with the fact that her children complete school assignments at a higher level than their peers. Seeing Natalia's success, she enrolled her youngest son Matthew when he was 6 years old. He complained about doing math at 09:00 on Saturdays when his friends were playing sports, but it paid off. Matthew, now 10, was able to skip third grade.

“I want them to understand that life is not about fun and ease,” she said.

Natalia, now 14, is already preparing for the SAT, and her extracurricular activities include competitive swimming and playing the piano. According to her mother, getting into a prestigious college is key.

“We would definitely like to try something a little higher than a community college,” notes Latushkevich.