Kumon Up: Private Tutoring Centers and Student Achievement / Joshua Goodman, Samuel Nitkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goodman, Joshua.

Contributor:

Nitkin, Samuel.

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w35671.

NBER working paper series no. w35671

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2026.

Summary:

Private tutoring chains like Kumon and Sylvan have expanded rapidly in recent decades. Combining data on business locations, household spending, and district test scores, we study who uses these centers and how they affect academic skills. Nearly half of tutoring users are from the top income decile, with Asian and White households five and two times as likely to purchase tutoring as Black and Hispanic households. A staggered differences-in-differences design shows the opening of a district's first chain center raises district-wide math and reading scores by 0.02-0.03 standard deviations, at a much lower cost than public spending typically producing similar gains. Math effects are largest for White and Asian students, so that center entry widens racial achievement gaps, though less so in more racially integrated districts. These private investments help their users, deepen educational inequality, and shape outcomes by which state accountability systems and families judge schools.

Notes:

August 2026.

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