Elite COO Asks New Teachers to Help Make Students College, Career, and Life Ready and Addresses Test Prep Industry Concerns Raised by The Wall Street Journal

Speaking at Elite Educational Institute's annual Teacher Convocation 2009, Elite COO, Kevin Sung, told an audience of almost two hundred new instructors, senior instructors, administrative staff, parents, and students to let the politicians and school administrators deal with the budget stalemate and to do their parts to make high school students college, career, and life ready.

"Math teachers, you will teach concepts that will appear on the SAT, but be aware that those same concepts will appear on other standardized tests: the California High School Exit Examination and the Standardized Testing and Reporting Examination, both of which are used to determine school and state accountability under state and federal law including the No Child Left Behind Act," Mr. Sung told the group, "The same is true for all of you writing and critical reading teachers. Plus, you should be aware that, in addition to improved standardized test scores, your lessons lead to improved articulation, comprehension, and critical thinking, skills invaluable to everything in life."

Mr. Sung's remarks were in large part a response to a plea made by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at a San Francisco School Alliance Luncheon two weeks ago. In his plea, Secretary Duncan asked community leaders 'Is California going to lead the race to the top [of public K-12 education] or are you going to lead the retreat?'

On another note, Mr. Sung, in his same remarks, also addressed concerns raised by The Wall Street Journal about the test prep industry.

"An estimated '2 million students spend about 2.5 billion dollars on test prep' every year. That kind of spending does not go unnoticed, and a recent Wall Street Journal article scrutinized our industry," stated Mr. Sung, "The gist of this article is that test prep companies who make score guarantees don’t help students improve their scores as much as they lead students and parents to believe. The article supports this notion by asserting that test prep students are routinely given more difficult diagnostic exams and easier exit ones to give the appearance of a substantial score increase."

"Let me tell you exactly what I told the Wall Street Journal: 'Please note that all of our tests are designed according to standards set out in Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing published by the APA," informed Mr. Sung, "Empirically, we know that our tests give a good prediction of actual scores, and we know anecdotally that many Elite alumni have been happy with their real test scores, but we don't guarantee or publicize specific score improvements because we recognize that any claims we made about score improvements would be suspect. Any test prep company that gives you their own test with their own score scale could be accused of fudging the numbers to make students think they improved more than they really had.'"

Elite Educational Institute has not made a score guarantee since the test switched to a 3-subject test in 2005 and strives everyday to provide authentic educational enrichment at a common-sense cost.