concerned parent on Everyday Math & tutoring

"Parents are shelling out money for their kids because of such programs."

This is the problem. I live in a high SES town where the parents volunteer in the classroom, help with homework, read to their kids each night, make sure their kids get to school on time, and purchase a copy of the Everyday Math reference book to keep at home and help with homework.

Many of these same parents still shell out $80/hour (cash) to the teachers to tutor their child on the side; or they send their child to Kumon, Huntington, or Sylvan because their child just isn't getting EM. These parents are convinced there's something wrong with their child even though their child is trying to pay attention in class and diligently doing all the work.

In these cases (I know of many), there should definitely be an option to support the child because they all don't have access to a teacher like Cheryl or to Singapore Math, for example. They get the teacher they get (who may have little if any interest of content knowledge when it comes to mathematics) and are subjected to ill-conceived curricula such as Everyday Math. Who lobbies for these children?

In these cases I would rather see taxpayer money go to effective tutoring than to pay for teacher in-service or a math coach who lacks advanced math content knowledge and is merely a cheerleader for the math curricula d'jour.