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Should Your Kid Be Taking Russian Math?

It touts itself as the key to helping your child get a leg up at school and presumably into college. Is this just the latest case of wealthy suburbanites keeping up with the Joneses, or has a Russian woman in Newton figured out a better way to teach to American kids?

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Russian School of Mathematics cofounder Inessa Rifkin started teaching kids extra math at her dining room table in Newton more than 20 years ago. Today, the program has 40,000 students in 53 schools in 12 states, Washington, DC, and Canada, in addition to a booming online program. / Photo by Jason Grow

On a January afternoon at the Russian School of Mathematics headquarters, a 6,500-square-foot bilevel brick building in a Newton corporate office park, Inessa Rifkin leads 15 excitable third and fourth graders through a lesson on graphs. She is in her sixties and chic in a blue-gray tunic over a crisp white button-down, skinny black pants, and a Tiffany-style silver pearl necklace. When she asks a question, her Russian accent unflinching, more than half of the students put their hands in the air. Not a single one has a cell phone on his or her desk. No one’s staring into space.

About halfway through the two-hour class she asks, “Quiz or break?” The group is unanimous in its decision: Quiz it is!

For Rifkin, there are two reasons to celebrate: Not only have the kids willingly chosen a quiz, but just before class began she’d learned that the Russian School of Mathematics—the extracurricular K–12 program she cofounded with fellow Soviet Union expat Irina Khavinson in Newton 22 years ago—had surpassed 40,000 students. RSM has 53 locations in 12 states, Washington, DC, and Canada. Online classes already have students from 24 countries, and are growing faster than Rifkin’s son, Ilya, who is the CEO, can find qualified teachers to teach them.

As the school’s birthplace—but also as a particular hotbed of do-more, get-ahead parenting—Massachusetts is ground zero for Russian Math. Inessa Rifkin estimates that one in four elementary students in Lexington is enrolled in her after-school program; the majority of kids start in second grade and continue through at least eighth, though many go all the way through high school. “I remember we couldn’t believe it when we got 40 students that first year,” she says. Back then, she held classes around her dining room table, and the neighbors complained about the lines of cars coming and going. These days, RSM employs a traffic cop to help keep order during pickup and drop-off at the school’s flagship location, which can accommodate several hundred kids at any given time. “We never even considered ourselves businesswomen,” Rifkin says of herself and Khavinson, acknowledging that they didn’t have a proper business plan until 2009, when Ilya quit his job at a Manhattan hedge fund to join the company at his mother’s urging. “And in this business plan, he wrote we would reach 10,000 students,” Rifkin says. “I laughed. Ten thousand students? From where?”

A decade later, Russian Math is nothing short of a phenomenon. Rifkin and Khavinson have been approached by eager VCs several times over the past 20 years to invest or buy them out and have turned down every offer. Parents of students in Russian Math, meanwhile, note with pride that their kids are two or three years ahead of their peers in math at school, and the company boasts of students’ remarkable scores on standardized tests (a 774 average math score for juniors who take the SAT) and high GPAs in school. The lobby at HQ displays photos of alumni alongside their recent college acceptances: Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Georgetown.

Still, not everyone thinks the program is the best thing that’s happened to math education since flashcards. Critics say it has questionable academic value to children and is focused more on accelerating students than deepening their understanding of the material. What’s more, there’s growing concern that the significant proportion of students enrolled in Russian Math in some Boston suburbs is having a negative effect on the learning environment inside regular school classrooms. Some see RSM as less of a mathematical miracle and more of an example of savvy marketing colliding headlong into suburban parental panic. “In a prior age, if your child was having trouble in math, you’d hire a tutor, if you had the money,” says Jon Star, an educational psychologist at Harvard who researches math education. “But all these kids who are going to Russian Math aren’t going there because they’re having trouble in math. They’re going there because the public school is not going fast enough for what parents perceive their child needs. So it’s just a very different set of motivations.”

Such behavior can put even more pressure on kids who are already feeling unprecedented levels of anxiety—and on parents to keep up with one another, either for perception or for something to talk about at dinner parties. Newton mother of three Marcela Almeida, whose oldest child started at RSM in third grade, her middle child in first, and her youngest in kindergarten, found herself smack dab in the middle of the rapidly accelerating suburban mathematical arms race. She says she enrolled her kids in RSM even before she’d decided there was anything particularly wrong with the education they were getting for free at the public schools. “I felt a tremendous pressure from our community to send our kids to RSM,” she says. “It appears as though attending RSM is the norm where we live, so I didn’t want them to be behind.”

Irina Khavinson worked as a math teacher for 15 years in St. Petersburg before teaming up with Rifkin to found the Russian School of Mathematics. / Photo by Jason Grow

Rifkin came to the United States from the Soviet Union with her husband, Victor, and their two kids, Ilya and Masha, with eight suitcases and $90 in 1988. She got a job as a mechanical engineer at Kronos, a maker of labor-management software. Ilya was in eighth grade when Rifkin says she started to question his motivation in school. His grades were fine, but not great; she assumed he was being lazy. “So I looked at what he was learning,” she says. “The math wasn’t up to my standards. He did not know things I thought he should know by then.” The lessons lacked cohesive flow; they were disconnected from one to the next and the process focused more on getting to the correct answer than understanding how to get there. No wonder Ilya wasn’t motivated, she thought, and of course he and his friends all hated math—the material was prescribed, rote, and very dull. Rifkin started talking to other parents. “Slowly, I came to the realization that it’s not that he’s lazy,” she says. “He takes advantage of everything that’s offered to him. But not much is offered to him.”

Rifkin started tutoring her son and some of his friends after work using lessons she remembered from an elite mathematics school that she’d attended in Minsk. The kids seemed to respond, and she began to think of ways to offer lessons to even more students, envisioning a structured program with teachers who would demand respect from their students and a math curriculum that would make learning fun—and effective. “Not something where someone comes to your house and your child feels like, My parents pay you money so you do what I tell you to do ,” which could not be more American, she says.

Her first step: Find a teacher. “I started to ask around, ‘Who knows good teachers from back in the Union?’” she says. In response, a few people told her that somebody told them that somebody had mentioned a woman named Irina. Then 47, Khavinson had been a math teacher for 15 years in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad. In Boston, she was working as an accountant and tutoring kids on the side, using a mix of Russian textbooks and lessons she’d developed on her own.

In December 1997, not long after teaming up, Khavinson and Rifkin advertised a meeting at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley to talk about the state of their children’s math education. Six hundred people showed up, mostly Russian-Jewish immigrants. Rifkin stood before them and presented her idea for the Russian School of Mathematics. She talked about building a community based on a common need, a place where kids could learn math and play together, and parents could get acquainted with one another. She didn’t have to explain to fellow Russians why math was important. To them, Rifkin says, math is what puts minds in order. What’s more, for immigrant families, STEM is considered a lifeline and the pathway to success in the United States. “I said, ‘We know what good mathematics is. Let’s try to do that here for our kids,’” she recalls. One Newton mom, Olga Dadasheva, stood up and said she recognized the problem, but asked what made Rifkin think she was the one who could solve it. “And I said to her,” Rifkin recalls, “‘You pretty much don’t have any other choice but to let me try.’”

Dadasheva, who arrived in the U.S. from Moscow in 1989 and was working as a software developer, had been looking for math tutoring for her daughter, who was 12 at the time. “It’s easy to criticize American education in general,” Dadasheva says now. “But Russians in particular have this experience where it has to be hard at school. You have to work very hard and get great marks. And that was missing in American schools, where it was more like, ‘If you can do it, that’s great. If you cannot do it, that’s great, do it tomorrow.’”

That night at the temple in Wellesley, Rifkin and Khavinson convinced 60 students to commit, all children of Russian immigrants. Says Rifkin: “It was less a business than a movement.”

Once RSM students (and their peers) started to see the edge they had over the other kids in school, and the confidence that resulted, more kept coming—Russian students, but also children of Chinese and Indian and European immigrants, too. By February 1998, Rifkin had quit her job at Kronos, and by September of that year, RSM had enrolled 150 students and moved to its first commercial location on Beacon Place in Newton, a two-room space on the second floor, over a hair salon. In 1999, Rifkin took out a home equity loan to buy a small white house with blue shutters on busy Centre Street, onto which her husband installed a large sign that read, The Russian School of Mathematics. It was all the advertising they needed, Rifkin says. In no time, the first Americans started showing up.

Biotech entrepreneur Heidi Wyle was one of them. She and her husband had moved to Weston for the good public schools, she says, but teachers were not teaching math the way she thought they should. “We used to joke that in the Weston schools, it was like, ‘No child allowed ahead,’” says Wyle, whose children are now grown and in their twenties. “They were happy to handle the kids who needed help, but they didn’t want these kids who were really bright.”

Wyle was instrumental in introducing RSM to her circle of high-powered, highly educated friends, which included several parents who were professors at Harvard and MIT. But a 2001 article that ran on the front page of the Boston Globe , “A Russian Solution to a U.S. Problem,” was the key to drawing in American families en masse, Rifkin says. “The writer basically drove by on a Sunday morning and saw these kids playing outside the house,” she recalls. He stopped and asked a very cute kid, ‘What are you doing here?’ And the kid said, ‘I’m studying math.’ He said, ‘You’re studying math on a Sunday morning? Why?’ And the kid said, ‘Because I want to get smart and go to MIT.’” The morning after the story ran, Rifkin arrived at the little house on Centre Street to find a line out the door.

Teacher Irena Burmistrovich instructs a classroom full of engaged students. / Photo by Jason Grow

From the start, Rifkin and Khavinson developed the RSM curriculum in-house, taking some of what Rifkin had used to teach Ilya and some of what Khavinson had used with her students, and then put the first round of tuition payments they received into further developing the coursework. They relied largely on the network of parents gathered that night at Temple Beth Elohim to find Russian émigrés, many of whom worked in academia, to help create lesson plans that emphasized critical thinking and reasoning over memorization. Advanced concepts, such as algebra, were introduced as early as first grade, using age-appropriate approaches and lots of visuals, because according to Rifkin and Khavinson, studies show that kids who learn algebra at an early age have better cognitive development overall. They encourage students to reach calculus by 10th or 11th grade.

Still, Rifkin and Khavinson argue their strategy is not as simple as merely giving students next year’s work. The main difference between Russian Math and the math being taught in schools, they say, boils down to a methodology that emphasizes derivation over memorization—of learning the reasons behind the answers—and a visual approach that helps students “see” the math, and therefore understand it better. Russian Math students also put in more face time with teachers: Since most kids sign up for 90 minutes to four hours a week in concentrated blocks, they theoretically get a chance to understand concepts more deeply. Classes are smaller, too, averaging around 12 students, and divided by ability levels, which means that teachers can teach to students’ very specific needs in a way that public school teachers just can’t. “It’s almost like how you do athletics here,” Rifkin says. “It’s not for your child to become an Olympic finalist. Math for us is not to become a mathematician, but to become a good thinker.”

Wyle, whose kids had also tried the math-enrichment program Kumon but quickly lost interest, remembers being impressed the first time she took her then-first grader to sit in on an RSM class. “They were doing algebra,” she says. “And the way they did it would be, like, two kids balanced on a seesaw. And underneath one kid, there might be the number seven, and underneath the other kid and a weight is a number five. And then they would ask the students, ‘What does the weight weigh?’ and of course the kids would say ‘two’ because they could see it, right? Their whole approach was built around seeing the math, and I myself could sort of see quantum mechanics by the time that class was over. They were teaching kids to see and understand. Not just do.”

Most important, students seem to like it. Newton mom Ellen Chu and her husband initially enrolled their daughter in RSM because she told them she hated math. This year, she started her first year of college at Oxford, majoring in math and computer science. “I think my daughter came to love math because RSM introduced her to more-complex, nuanced math, which she found exciting,” Chu says. “Based on her experience, I think the school is trying to help its students think, problem-solve, and enjoy math.”

Meanwhile, Wyle says RSM’s teachers are warm and invested and create a tightknit community. “Even from the very early days,” she recalls, “when the kids got high SAT scores, when they were merit finalists or stuff like that, for the teachers, it was like our kids were their kids.”

Make no mistake, Russian Math can be an adjustment, especially for students who start when they’re older. Four hours of extra math every week is a lot, and there’s homework, too. Maria Rubio, whose two daughters attended RSM’s Framingham and Wellesley locations and who first heard about the program from a Polish mom at her kids’ bus stop, says her older daughter was moved up a level at RSM after a teacher there said she wasn’t being challenged enough. “The first year, the poor girl,” Rubio says. “They would give her stacks of hundreds of exercises just so she could catch up.” Rubio asked the teacher if she was really sure her daughter was ready. “She told me, ‘I’m not going to keep her in the lower class because, I mean, this is about challenging them,’” Rubio recalls. “‘This is not about anything else. She doesn’t belong there. She has to go to the other level.’ So she struggled but she made it and she became really, really fluent and now I always thank those big stacks of exercises.”

In another success story, Belmont’s Alanna Fincke sent her son to Russian Math last year as an eighth grader at his request. “For Jonah, the way they taught made more logical sense to him than the way it was taught in his public school,” Fincke says. He’d previously attended, and liked, Kumon. And yet, Fincke says, “There was something about Russian Math that just seemed like a challenge, and he really liked that.”

All of the kids I talked to said Russian Math puts them at an advantage in their regular math classes, where they tend to do better on tests—or, at least, they don’t have to study as hard to do okay. Rifkin believes that better grades aren’t all they’re getting: “Grades matter, but they’re also more confident,” she says. “I see this in the girls we teach, especially. They enjoy their smartness tremendously. They’re not shy of being smart, or of having a voice in class. I see them when they start with us and I see them when they leave us and they’re different people.”

Photo by Jason Grow

Not everyone is convinced, though, that there is anything particularly special going on at Russian Math, other than kids spending four hours a week—or more—working on arithmetic. (In Jonah’s case, his parents even hired a tutor to help him do better in Russian Math, which may be the next level of the mathematical arms race.) Parents may think it is helping their kids, but Harvard’s Jon Star says there is no evidence that enrollment in RSM translates into better grades in schools or better standardized test scores. What’s more, he takes issue with the idea that Russian math is somehow better than the math that’s taught in public schools. In fact, he doesn’t even think it’s demonstrably unique. Part of the RSM sales pitch, Star says, is that its coursework engages students more, and differently, than their normal school curriculum. But he says there’s no universal school of math in Russia that everyone’s following and that is significantly different from what is taught in the U.S. “I’d urge parents to be cautious with that claim,” he says, “because just because the teacher teaches math while speaking with a Russian accent doesn’t make it better.”

What Star suspects is really going on is that Russian Math is merely teaching kids the same math they learn in their regular curriculum, just earlier and faster—which he says is pretty low-hanging fruit in the world of math education.

Meanwhile, Hilary Kreisberg, director of the Center for Math Achievement at Lesley University and a former fifth-grade teacher turned math coach, says her experiences with RSM students have led her to question the claim that Russian Math focuses more on developing a deep understanding of math instead of memorization. In fact, she has seen the opposite. “From what I’ve seen, they come in well above their grade-level standards in terms of memorization, but not in terms of content understanding,” she says. “Many of them very quickly get to an answer or can compute in a fast way, but they can’t necessarily explain to me what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.” And explanations, she says, are a critical component of mathematics. “In public school teaching, we are very strictly taught that the goal is not to accelerate,” Kreisberg says. “The goal is not to extend their thinking into another grade level, but to go deeper with the current grade-level standards because there’s always more you could learn about a topic.”

Many parents, though, love the accelerated curriculum and feel it gives their kids an edge, not just in high school but in the ever more competitive quest for admission to an elite university. Every last one of the dozen-plus RSM parents I spoke with told me that their child was “way ahead” of their regular math class, which they viewed as evidence of a less-than-challenging curriculum and further proof of how far behind American math is.

Star and Kreisberg say this attitude is part of a misguided “race to calculus,” where the view is that the sooner a student gets there, the better. “It’s not about helping your kid get to where they should be in math to really understand the math deeply. It’s about going fast so you can get ahead of everyone else, with the perception that that helps. And for what?” Star asks. “There is zero evidence that it helps your child to take calculus in 10th grade.”

Parents of RSM students note with pride that their kids are two or three years ahead of their peers. / Photo by Jason Grow

Not surprisingly, the popularity of Russian Math has posed a significant challenge for schools, whose teachers now find themselves struggling with how to instruct an increasing number of students who’ve already seen the material. The range in students’ abilities in a single classroom has always been a hurdle for educators. Now that range—and the challenge—is far bigger.

Ultimately, it isn’t just an issue for teachers, but for the very kids who attend RSM. Many of them are bored in math class and have “lost their curiosity,” Kreisberg says, which is an essential part of math. “My experience with students who have engaged in Russian Math is that they oftentimes have this arrogant disposition of, ‘I already know this, I don’t need to learn it again,’ even though they might be missing foundational gaps because they’re so accelerated.” She continues, “They don’t want to learn a different way to solve something. They just want to get to the answer because they can. I have a harder time teaching those students than any other students that I work with.”

It isn’t just RSM kids whose learning in school is affected, but non-RSM kids, too, who begin to question their abilities even if they’re performing perfectly well at grade level. Kreisberg says that when RSM kids in class make rapid-fire calculations, the other students begin to feel they’re not good at math, and that to be good they need to be in the RSM program.

In the worst cases, the Russian Math kids are rude and disrespectful to their teachers. Chu recalls hearing her daughter describe a situation at her high school in which RSM students were constantly correcting and criticizing their regular school teacher. “The word my daughter used,” Chu says, “was ‘insufferable.’”

Kreisberg views the popularity of Russian Math as representative of a general lack of respect for teachers. “Who determines if a child is ‘too advanced’ for their regular school curriculum?” she says. “It’s usually the parents, who are not qualified educators. But they’re not going into hospitals and telling doctors, ‘Hey, you should use this more-advanced procedure because I read about it somewhere.’ Nobody questions what we do in medicine, but we question educators all the time because we don’t value our teachers.” While that’s likely not entirely true—medical professionals have complained about this very problem since the first season of ER —several parents did admit that they enrolled their children in RSM without ever bothering to talk to their kids’ school. “We realized early on that the school didn’t have accommodations for our daughters’ specific level,” Rubio says. “But we never asked the school about it. Because we had RSM.”

At the same time, many RSM parents and students seem to expect teachers to teach to their accelerated level, and at least some schools seem to be complying. According to RSM, Newton South has added new courses and additional levels of math or provided RSM kids with extra homework in order to keep these kids engaged (and their parents happy).

In most cases, though, teachers don’t teach to the RSM kids’ accelerated levels, presumably because they’re busy teaching the rest of the students who are learning on the normal public school schedule. Rubio says one of her daughters was separated out of class for a year. “They would give her a packet with some supposedly more-advanced stuff, and she would go out into the hallway with another girl and do work together,” she says. “And I said, ‘But what do you do if you have a question?’ And she would say, ‘Oh, I just ask [the other girl].’ And I said, ‘What if she has a question?’ And she said, ‘She asks me.’”

RSM also says that other towns, including Weston and Winchester, are taking more-extreme measures. They have started specifically asking parents to refrain from enrolling their children in the Russian School of Mathematics, something that only seems to spark more ire among parents—and which gets tricky when teachers from those districts are spotted dropping off their own kids there. (None of the schools mentioned in this article, nor many others contacted for this story, responded to repeated requests for comment.) Star thinks schools could do a better job communicating their plan for attending to advanced children’s math instruction needs, instead of just discouraging enrollment in RSM. “But maybe in some communities,” he says, “it already feels like they lost the battle.”

There is also the issue of elitism. RSM says that classes start at $20 an hour, which may be a handy way of making it sound affordable; tuition for most students is at least $2,000 per course. It is likely not a coincidence that its locations are all in upper-middle-class towns. According to a 2019 report about after-school math from Pioneer Education, all but one of the Massachusetts towns where RSM has locations have a median household income of $93,600 or more, compared to the statewide average of $67,800; five are among the 20 Massachusetts communities with the highest median income. While Kumon has partnered with schools in inner cities to provide its program to low-income families, RSM has no similar program. (It does, however, offer financial aid to 10 to 15 percent of its students.)

Chu says that in middle school, her daughter’s teachers were openly critical of RSM’s elitist nature, and Chu doesn’t disagree with them. Neither does Wyle, saying, “I understand why [the schools] would have that defensive position, because it’s tough for them when they have some significant cohort in their class who are getting this world-class math education, and then there’s everybody else. But from my perspective, I never would have been at the Russian School of Mathematics if it hadn’t been for Weston’s bad math curriculum.”

On a Saturday morning in late January, the lobby at RSM’s Newton headquarters has become the new soccer-field sidelines: Moms in Canada Goose parkas chat animatedly, clutching Yeti mugs, as sleepy kids shuffle into their respective classrooms. The parking lot is a showroom of Range Rovers and white Audis. “My God, we spent so much money on it,” says mom Maria Rubio of the years her two daughters attended RSM. “But it is amazing.”

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Start Early. Learn Deeply.

Spark an early interest in mathematics and lay the groundwork for higher level reasoning., we nurture the natural flexibility and curiosity of young minds to spark an interest in math and lay the foundations of higher level reasoning and logical thinking., how it works.

Young children are naturally curious, uninhibited, and can easily grasp very complex ideas. Our curriculum and methodology are built with this in mind. Our students learn to work with, and develop an appetite for, challenging mathematical concepts.

Early abstract thinking

Students are introduced to abstract mathematical concepts, with unknowns represented by familiar items. They are guided to solve problems using reasoning and logic.

Mental flexibility

Students play with concepts, exploring them from multiple angles, and learn that problems can have multiple paths to a solution.

Students regularly engage with problems for which the solutions are neither obvious nor easy, learning the particular thrill of accomplishment that comes with working through challenge.

Environment

Students are immersed in our classroom culture of conversation, debate, and verbalizing their thinking. They engage in a playful environment where they can often physically explore mathematical concepts together with their peers. 

Check out our Elementary School Math Worksheet.

From beginner to competition, multiple levels in each grade enable us to place each child in an environment best suited to them., i - accelerated level.

Often the best fit for new students, this curriculum is designed to meet students where they are and bring them to the level of international standards.

II - Advanced Level

Most students continue to this level, where we offer a challenging mathematics curriculum that provides the deep understanding, reasoning skills, and confidence needed for success from elementary through honors high school and beyond.

III - Honors Level

This rigorous curriculum goes into great depth on the topics covered in the advanced level, and regularly employs competition-level problems that encourage students to push the boundaries of their abilities. Many students in Honors also choose to participate in math competitions.

Competitions Programs

Success with math competitions comes first with the deep and broad foundation best delivered in our core classes. For those interested in a more focused study of competition materials, we offer a selective competitions program that prepares novice and veteran competitors alike for the full array of national and international math competitions.

What to Expect

2 hours per week

Our classes meet for 1.5 hrs - 2 hrs a week, depending on age.

The Classroom

A classroom environment is key to our methodology. Classes consist of up to 12 students and an expert teacher leading an interactive lesson.

Homework is assigned each week to reinforce what was taught in class.

A Unique Curriculum

Perfected over two decades by our team of gifted academics, our curriculum is inspired by elite mathematical schools in the former Soviet Union and adapted for the U.S. educational environment.

Our Results

Our students see soaring confidence and performance in mathematics overall, and many participate in a variety of math competitions.

There's one Latin saying, "Non scholae sed vitae discimus," which means, "we do not learn for school but for life." That's what RSM provides: how to learn, how to comprehend, and how to apply. We couldn't ask for more for our child.

Frequently asked questions

Why are you called the "russian" school of math.

The “Russian” comes from our approach - which is based on elite math schools in the former Soviet Union, adapted to the U.S. environment. According to Russian tradition - the study of mathematics is the pre-eminent tool of mental development. We teach math in a way that not only builds mathematical excellence, but also develops intellect and character.

Where does your curriculum come from?

We offer one continuous curriculum, from K-12. Our curriculum and methodology, perfected over 20 years by our team of gifted academics, is inspired by elite mathematical schools in the former Soviet Union, adapted for the American educational environment.

How big are your classes? What is the teacher to student ratio?

Our average class size is 12, and with three levels per grade we're able to ensure that each child is placed in a class that is appropriately challenging. Classrooms are an essential part of our methodology and curriculum as the environment enables students to verbalize and debate their ideas and exposes them to different ways of thinking.

How long are your classes? Can an elementary school child sit that long?

Our class-times vary depending on a child’s age. Starting anywhere from 1.5 hours for kindergarteners to 2-4 hours in high school. In the younger grades, we regularly mix activities and work with manipulatives to keep students engaged.

How much homework should I expect?

The goal of homework is to reinforce what was taught in class. Our teachers assign just enough to strengthen the skills developed in class. Homework is an excellent tool for you to gauge your child’s learning. It should take approximately half the length of your child’s lesson to complete. If the homework takes an unreasonably long or short amount of time, that may be a red flag indicating that your child is not in an appropriate level.

Who are your teachers?

All of our teachers have a background in mathematics or a related field and have a passion for the subject. They also go through extensive training to teach according to our specific methodology and curriculum.

What is the best age to join?

It takes many years to develop a deep mathematical foundation as well as the type of mindset we focus on building. With mathematics, as with a language or a sport, the earlier a child starts the better. Our students begin to reason with abstract concepts in elementary school, and by middle school they are not only familiar with essential elements of algebra but can easily apply them in problem solving.

What is your tuition?

For specific tuition details, please visit the "tuition" section of your RSM branch of choice.

Is your program right for my child?

We have designed multiple levels for every grade specifically to be able to serve each child's development based on his or her knowledge and ability. We recommend scheduling a free evaluation, as these sessions enable us to get a sense of each child's needs and recommend a class that is best suited to him or her.

Will your program confuse my child in school?

The concepts that we cover are fundamental and we study them in depth. Children see concepts from a variety of different angles. This doesn’t lead to confusion but rather empowers students by deepening their understanding. Since our curriculum is generally ahead of public school, children will often first learn concepts at RSM. Once they master them, we find they can adapt to any school format.

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World class math instruction your children will love , world class math instruction your children will love.

Homework Help Policies

Please limit sign-ups to one slot per week per child per class. In times of high demand we may limit access to homework help to 4 sessions per semester.

If you need to cancel a homework help session, please allow at least 24 hrs before the start of the session.  Repeated no-shows or last minute cancellations may cause loss of access to this valuable service.

When a class is missed,  only homework assignments are provided, unless the class teacher requests that other materials are sent home by the office. Please contact your teacher if you have questions about classroom assignments.

As a complimentary service, homework help is only available to our families whose accounts are up to date.   Missed homework will also be mailed only to students with up-to-date accounts.

TESTIMONIALS

“I have been going to RSM-MetroWest in Framingham for eight years now, and I have loved every year of it. Going to RSM has helped me excel in school, and develop my love for mathematics. The classes not only support the school curriculum but also go beyond it by challenging students with more advanced problems. I love the challenge, and I believe it has only made my interest in mathematics grow stronger. I am truly grateful for the knowledge and skills that it has given me, and I would not be where I am now if it weren’t for RSM-MetroWest.”

– Prakalya Chandrasekar, 10th grader at the Advanced Math & Science Academy

I enjoy advanced math because I am learning about new methods. One of my favorites is the mushroom. With that, you can find the LCM. I like my teacher, Mrs. Alla Farizon. She is very nice and she makes sure you understand the topic. I also like friends in the class. They are fun to play with at break. At my regular school, in my math class, there are a lot of kids who complain about math. But here no one complains about it, so it is much nicer. Every student is excited to learn and the best part is….. it’s math!

– Student, level 5

My son had a wonderful experience at RSM, Framingham, his mathskills improved considerably and was challenged enough to participate in competitions!! Needless to say his school math became very easy for him.

- Vishruta Parikh, August 2018

My favorite thing about advanced math is learning new things. I get new problems to solve. My teacher, Mr. Gene (Sigalovsky) is fun. He explains how to do a method to solve the problem. My teacher is very nice and he is also very fun

- Student, level 3.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you Anna, and the School of Mathematics, for broadening our son's field of vision on mathematics. He has seen many topics and ways to approach them that he would not have had access to otherwise.

- Dar and Einat Efroni, parents of a high school student, 2015

Our son has been with RSM-MetroWest for several years. At the end of the 7th grade he took the Math SAT and earned a perfect score of 800. We just wanted to thank Russian Math for preparing him so well.

- Mr and Mrs. Sridhar, Summer 2015

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RSM Student Portal - Russian School of Mathematics

RSM Student Portal: Get Free RSM Homework Answers Help

What is rsm student portal.

Rsm Student Portal or the Russian School of Mathematics is a unique school that is more like an after-school program. It provides mathematics education for kids who are attending the K-12 level of public and private schooling.

The school is committed to provide kids an opportunity to excel in the field of mathematics.

To accomplish this, the institution provides the opportunity to advance in mathematics by going beyond the traditional curriculum of schools and the regular schooling system.

RSM is located in the city of San Jose, San Mateo, and Irvine or you can easily access the RSM student portal online via computer.

The school was founded by Inessa Rifkin and has Irene Khavinson as the co-founder. The institution was created with a focus on primary school mathematics.

The school’s high-level classes provide students with preparations for standardized tests that include SAT, SAT II , and AP examinations . All classes involve intensive reinforcement of topics by using examples and exercises.

The classes at RSM also involve a competitive environment including classwork and homework for all students.

This helps them revise and get hands-on whatever students are taught in the class.

This is one of the best approaches that help students polish their skills etc. As far as the after-school program for mathematics is concerned, it was established in the city of Boston.

The school started off from a very small scale. RSM started off from a living room located in Inessa Rifkin’s home.

Since then, the school became one of the largest after-schools that offered math enrichment programs in the Northeast.

It serves more than 10,000 students belonging all the seven states. The school also runs an overnight camp located in New Hampshire in Sunapee.

RSM Student Portal California:

RSM is known to have three schools in California. Apart from that, RSM can now be found in Sunnyvale.

The Russian School Of Mathematics is located in California in the year 2006 when the co-founder of the campus Irina Khavinson opened a school in Santa Clara County, San Francisco Bay Area. the school is known as RSM-San Jose and served more than 700 students from San Jose.

The school catered students from communities of Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Gatos and surrounding areas.

RSM Student Portal Illinois:

There are two different RSM schools in Illinois. There is one campus located in Naperville and Wheeling.  The Naperville is one of the first branches of RSM in Chicago. It serves students from the K-12 of Naperville and other communities located in the surrounding area.

RSM Student Portal Massachusetts:

RSM is one of the most prominent institutions in the area. The state has more than 10 schools located in Acton, Andover, Framingham, Lexington, Franklin, Newton , and other areas.

Here RSM Newton is the headquarters and is one of the largest branches of the school. More than 2,000 students come here on a weekly basis from around 30 communities that lie in the MetroWest.

RSM Student Portal Washington:

One of the schools of RSM is located in Washington. It opened in the year 2012 as the first branch of RSM in Washington.

The branch serves students who come from Redmond, Seattle, Renton, Sudbury and other communities located in the surrounding areas.

RSM Student Portal New Hampshire

RSM has a campus in the state of New Hampshire in Nashua. The branch located in Nashua was the first branch in New Hampshire.

It serves students from Windham, Pelham, and Brookline, Hollis, Hudson and many other communities present in the area.

It opened in the year 1997 with a vision to provide a systematic approach and educate kids keeping in mind the traditions prevailing in the Soviet Union and Europe.

RSM Student Portal Connecticut

The RSM School is one of the best in the state of Connecticut and is located in the city of Rock Hill.

The school commenced operation in the year 2013 and serves students from communities like Cromwell, South Windsor, Manchester, and other surrounding areas.

RSM Student Portal Kentucky

This is one RSM school in Kentucky. It was located in Louisville and started in the year 2005.

This was one of the first branches of RMS and serves more than 200 students from Louisville and the surrounding areas. Areas like Crestwood, Goshen, Pewee Valley, Mount Washington, and other areas.

Who can take benefit from RSM

RSM has one of the most dynamic curricula and a passionate team. The team comprises of knowledgeable individuals who work day in and day out and help add innovative research into the kid’s mental upbringing.

The curriculum is quite unique in the USA and all the lessons are designed keeping in mind the concepts that are introduced earlier years. The teaching method is quite unique and doesn’t only teach for the sake of taking a test or rushing through concepts.

The goal of the course is to provide students with insights about deep mathematical how-know. This is going to help students develop the habit of critical thinking.

To accomplish this RSM takes the following things in mind and make sure that students and teachers follow the right direction and make the learning process easier. These areas covered by:

Being Patient:

It is nothing to worry about the level of mathematical proficiency that is associated with the kid. The course and study material are designed in a systematic way to make things equally challenging for students.

Students also feel enthusiasm when they experience victory in a challenging situation. The curriculum and study material at RSM is designed keeping in view this intellectual level of your kid.

It is ok if the kid doesn’t catch up with the lectures and the lessons at first. One has to be patient if one has to learn a new skill or simply mathematics. When the time comes and the kid becomes skillful enough it automatically becomes a confidence booster for the kid.  

The Goal Is To Make RSM Feel Like A Family:

The kids are a reflection of what their parents are. If any of the parents are skillful in maths then the kid is going to find the subject quite interesting as well. It is a good approach that you involve your child in a discussion.

Also, it is a good idea if you would appreciate your child while he does his homework. The idea is to make studying mathematics a fun-filled experience.

Don’t Be Shy If You Don’t Understand A Question of Rsm Student Portal:

The math problems are designed to meet the needs of the modern-day approaches to mathematics.

Students are required to apply different steps and methods and get the correct answers for themselves.

The problems are created in a way that they always keep the hunger to get more and more done in the class and at home.

Make Sure That Your Kid Owns Their Homework:

The assignments and homework given to the kids are designed in a way to actually build confidence and boost their confidence level.

This is going to help them learn stuff more effectively and efficiently.

If the kid successfully solves problems without major assistance then it’s good.

If not and he is getting stuck on a problem, then it is time to explain it to him and make sure that you help him learn the difficult aspects of the problem.

This is why this exercise is very beneficial to help them own the learning process. Make sure that you identify aspects of the problem where your kid needs your guidance and help.

Involve Your Kid’s Teacher in the Process:

A teacher is qualified enough to have a broader picture of the kid and another aspect of his or her personality.

It is something good and very helpful for the kid to use different resources at their disposal to get in touch with their teacher.

One can simply communicate with their teachers using messages, emails, and phone calls, etc.

Parents can guide their kids regarding the adequate use of such devices.

RSM is one of the best institutions that is working to make the most out of their resources at hand. With a huge network of students.

Campuses and schools RSM becomes one of the high-ranking institutions working to make students shine in the field of Mathematics.

The success of an educational institution rests with the success of the students.

It is necessary that efforts should be made to help students become successful in their personal and professional life.

Stay tuned for more updates from this superb educational institution in the United States.

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There’s fear of math. Then there’s fear of ‘Russian math.’

There’s fear of math. And then there’s fear of Russian math , a private K-12 enrichment program cofounded by an immigrant in her Newton dining room in 1997. It has since grown to 32 locations in nine states and an online program and along the way earned such a reputation for intensity that some parents use it as a threat.

“If your attitude doesn’t improve,” Mary Lewis-Pierce of Jamaica Plain told her fourth-grader, “I’m sending you to Russian math.”

By her own admission, Lewis-Pierce has no firsthand knowledge, but she’s heard about Russian-math-induced tears. Hours of homework. Impossibly hard equations.

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“I picture mean Russian women teaching math in some gulag,” she said.

Let’s say right up front that while class time and homework for high schoolers taking Russian math can top six hours a week, there are no gulags. Classes are taught in pleasant towns such as Belmont and Marblehead and Wellesley. Recess is given.

But what is Russian math, anyway?

It is more of an approach than an entirely new kind of math. The idea is that students are capable of understanding complex mathematical concepts at a far younger age than they are introduced in US schools, making kids stretch their brains. Think algebra in first grade.

With more than 11,000 students enrolled in nine Massachusetts locations and online, and plans to open centers soon in Weston and Burlington, the Russian School of Mathematics is one of the biggest math-enrichment programs in the region. (Disclosure: This reporter’s two sons attended Russian math classes, one just briefly.)

Its popularity — and that of programs such as Kumon, Kohlberg Math Learning Center , Girls’ Angle , and the free online Khan Academy — comes at a time when the country is increasingly focused on the importance of math education.

Some parents send their children for extra math because they fear they aren’t strong enough in the subject. Others want their children to have a competitive advantage when applying to selective colleges. Some families just love math and invest in extracurricular academic programs the way others do sports and music lessons.

There’s also a perception that public schools around the country don’t teach the subject well — a concern that isn’t new, according to Jon Star, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“For at least the past 200 years in the US, we have been engaged in frequent, almost continual conversations about how we teach math in schools,” he wrote in an e-mail.

RSM tuition averages about $2,000 a year. The school says it discounts the price when families of existing students “experience financial hardship,” but it does not offer scholarships.

The school touts impressive results on its website. “RSM’s 11th grade SAT average is 774 out of 800.” And: “For the past 3 years, over 75 percent of the Massachusetts Math Kangaroo Olympiad winners were RSM students!”

Lots of families — with the financial wherewithal to do so — sign up. And many of their friends and relatives have basic questions, such as: Is it math taught in Russian? By Russians? And why Russian math? Aren’t they better known for literature and communism and vodka? (No.)

And, finally: Are the teachers as scary as some say?

School leaders appear to have heard that last question before. When it was put to them on a recent Sunday morning, as students began arriving for the 8:45 class, the principal and three colleagues allowed themselves a tolerant chuckle.

“A lot of our teachers are parents themselves,” Ralitsa Dimitrova, the principal said, disputing the characterization.

As for the bigger question — what is Russian math? — Ilya Rifkin, chief operating officer, began by contrasting it with other approaches.

“The biggest difference is if you give a new [Russian math] student a problem they’ve never seen before, they will look at the problem and say, ‘I don’t know,’ ” he said.

But if you give a new problem to a veteran student, he explained, “they’ll look and look and look and say, ‘I don’t know, but I have a couple of ideas.’ ”

The school introduces algebra in first grade, and fundamental concepts of geometry in sixth grade — “significantly earlier” than most US schools, where the material is introduced in the sixth and seventh grades, and eighth and ninth grades, respectively, said Masha Rifkin, the school’s outreach director.

The math is not taught in Russian, but many of the teachers are from the former Soviet Union and were brought up with the Soviet methodology of math education, Masha Rifkin said.

And the approach, developed by Inessa Rifkin, is definitely Russian: It’s based on the theories of a Russian psychologist named Lev Vygotsky , who died in 1934 at age 38.

As the school explains on its website, under the heading “What makes our math ‘Russian?’ ” — “Vygotsky recognized that education can stimulate intellectual development.

“By specifically targeting the edge of a student’s current understanding (or his or her ‘Zone of Proximal Development’) you provide mental exercises that challenge the mind in the same way that physical exercise in sports challenges the body.”

Greater Boston is filled with Russian math dropouts. In Andover, Tracey Spruce and her young children fought so much about Russian math homework, and her son, then a second-grader, became so anxious about homework and class, that after a couple of years in the program the family quit.

“I finally came to the conclusion that I was not willing to sacrifice my kids’ mental health for math excellence,” Spruce said.

But on Sunday morning in Newton, the students were as enthusiastic as infomercial stars.

“I really like learning intervals,” said Liv Davidson, 9, a third-grader at Bates Elementary School in Wellesley.

“I like to learn multiplication and division,” said Christina Gabrieli, a third-grader at Dexter Southfield, a private school in Brookline.

Christina’s mother, Susan Gabrieli, a scientist at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, mentioned that three of Christina’s cousins who took Russian math are now at Harvard and a fourth has been accepted.

The scene in Tatyana Bisikalo’s fifth-grade honors class was similarly buoyant. The 10 students gasped when she handed out compasses.

“This is super cool,” one girl said, as another chattered happily about Venn diagrams.

Some parents believe it’s wrong to add to a child’s academic burden, while others fear their children will fall behind if they don’t take extra classes.

In Brookline, Aliza Dash is partially regretting her decision to opt out of Russian math when her son and daughter, now high schoolers, were young. “I thought, why torture children?”

But now their peers who did take Russian math are thriving, she said. “I feel like I set my children up for failure.”

Fear of Russian math: Turns it out strikes fear whether you do it or don’t.

Beth Teitell can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter @bethteitell .

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Solving Our Math Problem

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• Carey Goldberg

When Larisa Itina was emigrating from Russia in 2000, her son Boris told her not to bother packing all the toys, games and puzzles she'd collected for helping children learn math.

He said, " 'Mother, you will never use this in the United States,' " she recalls. "All of the people I know said to me, 'You will never teach in the United States. It's not possible.' "

They were very wrong. These days, Itina helps run a thriving after-school program in Brighton called the Studio of Engaging Math . Turns out, a great many American parents want to send their kids to what most of us call simply "Russian math." (As in my nagging refrain when my own children were younger and went to Itina's studio: "Have you done your Russian math homework yet?")

From Newton to Brooklyn, from Dallas to San Jose, "Russian math" is a rising trend, driven by a fast-growing chain called the  Russian School of Mathematics . With 22,000 students at latest count, the school is the giant among Russian math programs, boasting 15 branches in Massachusetts, where it began, and 40 in total across the country.

One of those 22,000 students is 10-year-old Liv Davidson from Wellesley, who has been coming to the Russian School of Mathematics since kindergarten. She says she finds it fun — and helpful with her regular-school math: "Well, it's more challenging than school math — way more challenging," she says. "It's like, the next level of math, so I've already learned the stuff I learn in school, which makes it easier."

Inessa Rifkin, who co-founded the school 20 years ago in Newton, says that one-fifth of the town's elementary school students come to the Russian School of Mathematics these days. "We are taking what the Soviets did the best — math education — and we bring it out of that awful closed society to the free world," she says.

Where, it turns out, demand is rising along with the increasing emphasis on math education.

"I've read articles that, in the future that the kids will live in, math will be one of the most important skills, in addition to computer science," says Lisa Watanabe, whose daughter attends the Russian School of Mathematics branch in Brookline. "I just feel that if she's strong in math, it will open so many doors."

Students usually attend once a week, at a cost of about $2,000 a year. In towns where it's popular, Russian math has a somewhat daunting reputation for rigor — and thick packets of homework.

Rifkin says the school's curriculum is based on Russian teaching traditions that emphasize reasoning and deeper understanding early on, not just memorization and practice drills. "The child should be brought to abstract level as soon as possible," she says, "meaning early introduction of algebra and geometry, not only arithmetic," and helping children figure out principles for themselves rather than spoon-feeding them.

After-school math — what’s called math "enrichment" — is not new, from global chains like Kumon , which originated in Japan, to private tutoring and the online Khan Academy . But Russian math as a big "thing" among American schoolchildren is relatively new — and it's spreading so quickly that some parents say they worry their children will be at a disadvantage if they don’t go to Russian math.

Some parents send their children to Russian math because they're dissatisfied with their school curriculum, or because their child simply loves math and wants more, says professor Jon Star, who researches math education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

For some, there's also an element of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses.

"They may feel that their child will be behind in school if they don't get the after-school help," Star says, "and it sort of leads to this kind of arms race, if you will, of after-school math instruction."

The Real Arms Race

The story of Russian math in America begins with a real arms race: the nuclear face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. To bolster its science, the Soviet Union created elite math-and-physics schools and funneled the smartest math-minded kids into them.

"Russia has a brilliant mathematical tradition," says professor emeritus Loren Graham of Harvard and MIT, a leading American historian of Russian science. "There was a time in the Soviet period when Moscow was, in my opinion, the strongest center of mathematics in the world. Then it was hurt a lot by emigration — but it’s still strong."

That emigration, mainly of Russian Jews, began as a trickle in the 1970s. But as the Iron Curtain lifted, it turned into a great exodus, including an estimated half a million people who came to the U.S., many to the Boston area.

"I always tell my children, 'If you think about our immigration, we didn’t have anything, you know that, only education,' " says Rifkin, of the Russian School of Math.

She emigrated with her family in 1988 from Minsk, where she worked as a mechanical engineer, to Boston. She and her husband adapted quickly — they found work and bought a home in Newton. Life in America was working out well, until her son Ilya was in eighth grade and she got a life-changing shock: She realized he didn't know any of the math she expected him to know at that age.

"So I started to talk to other Russian families, and they had all the same problem," she recalls. "And the main problem wasn't even attitude; the main problem was performance in math and science. And all of us engineers, and all of us making money with math and science, this is what let us become independent so quickly. And our kids, they don't know it, so what are they going to do?"

When the Russian School of Mathematics opened at her home in 1997, she expected mainly Russian immigrant families to enroll, and many do. But with the rising importance of technology and science in the economy, plenty of other families see the virtues of Russian math, too.

A few voices from parents who send their children to the Brookline branch:

Joanna Messing: "We looked at the American mathematics program and American scores, and it was underwhelming to say the least." Dominic Nicholas: "[Our son] had some natural proclivity for math, and we wanted to have him reach his maximal potential. And it didn't feel like that was necessarily going to happen in public school." Rafael Irizarry: "Our biggest fear was that she would think math was boring and not interesting and not like it, and Russian math has saved us from that."

Deep Understanding Of 'Why'

Slava Gerovitch, a math historian at MIT, says that despite the American parental shorthand, there’s actually no single thing called "Russian math."

"It’s not that the Russians particularly have a gene for math or anything like that," he says. "But I think there are some systemic features of the Soviet school system that helped kids learn math easier and better."

Among them: strong training for teachers, and well-honed textbooks used by virtually the entire country. They were "not just sets of problems but also deep explanations," Gerovitch says, helpful references if students couldn't understand classroom work.

"The way Russians teach is that they make sure that every student, when they perform a mathematical operation, they understand why it is performed this way, not just learn how to do it," Gerovitch says.

Itina, at the Studio of Engaging Math, helped write some of those Russian textbooks, and now enlivens and adapts that material for children in Brighton. She says math inevitably involves some work — just as playing an instrument requires practice — but the key to teaching math to kids is to understand that they can work well only if they're emotionally invested.

"If I give to a child some problem in the academic style, he will say, 'I don't understand that, I hate it,' and go away," she says.

So a typical math problem at the studio might involve the geometry of a princess' castle, says Itina's daughter, Anya, who teaches there. Students at the studio play extensively with "manipulatives," shapes and puzzles that help them learn using their hands — a collection vastly expanded beyond the paraphernalia Itina brought from Russia.

"What I think I do," Anya Itina says, "is to develop critical thinking, as well as certain math skills, through understanding and not memorization, while trying to make it more fun, in small groups."

Here's the irony: To Americans, she teaches "Russian math," but as the product of real Russian schools, she can see how dramatically "Russian" teaching in this country differs from back in the USSR. For example, in contrast to big Russian classes at regimented desks, the studio teaches only in small groups of a half-dozen children around a table. And it divides the groups by ability levels, so it might have five or six different leveled groups for children who are all in the same grade at school.

"This is not a Russian thought," Anya Itina says. "Russian thought is everyone learning the same way."

At a recent Studio of Engaging Math class for kindergartners, the students solve some basic addition and subtraction problems on paper, but also a harder puzzle that teacher Elina Starobinets presents on the chalkboard:

First line: A blank box shaped like a triangle + a blank box shaped like a circle = 12. Second line: A triangle box + a triangle box = 16.

The kids figure out right away that the triangles have to be 8 and so the circle has to be 4, but Starobinets pushes them a little further:

"Why did you start with the triangles first?" She calls on Sonia Shroff, who's raising her hand. In a piping but confident voice, Sonia asserts her idea: "You should do the bottom one first, because they're the same."

Right, Starobinets affirms. "They're the same number, so I'm only guessing one number."

Sonia has just derived the principle that it's best to solve equations with only one unknown. At age 6.

Challenges For American Schools?

The rise of Russian math classes can pose challenges for American schools. For example: when a teacher introduces a new topic, only to find that a quarter of the students have already covered it in Russian math.

Some teachers find Russian math may also make some kids overconfident about how well they understand a math topic, says Steven Rattendi, the chair of the math department at Newton South High School.

And there’s concern that Russian math could increase the math performance gaps between rich and poor, between families that can afford $2,000 a year for weekly after-school classes and those that can’t.

But Russian math also seems to be helping to expand the pool of American kids who are comfortable with math. In every town where the Russian School of Math establishes itself, says co-founder Rifkin, "very quickly the number of honors classes, especially in high school, grows tremendously."

At Newton South, the percentage of students in honors math classes has gone up from about 20 percent to 30 percent over the last decade, Rattendi says. But is that thanks to Russian math? Without data, he cannot say.

He does worry that the sheer numbers of students in Russian math may add to pressure on parents and kids.

"'My neighbor's child is in Russian math, I need to be in Russian math,' " Rattendi says he hears. "And I think the answer to that is probably no. You don't have to be in Russian math to be successful in math. Does extra math certainly help? Absolutely. I can't take that away. Just like extra music lessons outside the school day are going to make you better at playing the violin."

Russian math teaching methods have not been extensively studied by American researchers, says Harvard professor Star, probably because Russia doesn't top the list of international math scores as, say, Singapore and Finland do.

But its popularity has reached the point, he says, that if it is making public school teachers' jobs harder because it increases the gaps among students, then "we have to think about what challenges this creates for the school system and how we can solve those challenges. And that's something that we should be doing."

It remains to be seen how big Russian math will grow, and what effect it will have overall.

For now, at the individual level, Rifkin says her teachers see a difference when their students face a hard problem. They go from a knee-jerk "I don't get it," she says, to "Hmmm, let me think..."

This segment aired on April 13, 2017.

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Carey Goldberg Editor, CommonHealth Carey Goldberg is the editor of WBUR's CommonHealth section.

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At the tender age of 7, while most kids were learning to ride bikes and play video games, Natalia was pondering early principles of multiplication and algebra two hours per week in her Russian math class .

“I thought my daughter could do more than what she was offered [in school],” her mother, Anna told The Post. The 44-year-old, who did post-grad work at Stanford and is now a data scientist and investor, enrolled Natalia in the Russian School of Mathematics seven years ago, paying $3,000 for the tutoring — on top of $30,000 annually for tuition at an all-girls private elementary school.

“If she wants to be a doctor, an engineer — math will never hurt. Her math will increase the understanding of the world,” said the mom of four who lives in Clyde Hill, Washington. “The sky is the limit.”

The latest must-have for well-to-do parents eager to give their children any and every advantage is Russian math classes. They utilize a method that was developed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War and prioritize reasoning, critical thinking and abstract principles over brute memorization. Companies offering the instruction are seeing a boom in enrollment as wealthy families look to infiltrate the Ivy League.

“Money is the fix for anything,” a 40-year-old Manhattan mom recently told the Cut of hiring a Russian math tutor for her preschooler. She also paid a consultant to help get the child into a top-notch private kindergarten.

The Boston-based Russian School of Mathematics was founded more than 25 years ago by immigrants from Belarus and Ukraine and now boasts more than 70 locations across the US. Its first Manhattan chapter opened in 2017 on the Upper East Side; uptown has since acquired two more offices while additional outposts have popped up in Battery Park, Brooklyn and Scarsdale, NY.

“Growth has been steady,” the school’s director of outreach, Masha Gershman, told The Post.

Kids can enroll as young as age 5.

“Earlier is always better, as with any other type of development,” Gershman said. “Math is a tool to shape how a child thinks.”

The school is quick to note that it has no current ties to Moscow.

“We stand unequivocally with the Ukrainian people against Putin, his regime, and Russia’s war on Ukraine,” a statement on it website reads. “We named our school to reflect the historic tradition of Russian mathematics that we all share. This is a tradition that predates Russia’s current government and will exist long after it.”

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

“In American schools they start with the easy problems and work up to the hard problems, where as we start with the hard problems in the beginning of the lesson,” said Kolchinsky, a former Silicon Valley software developer who started his online tutoring platform in 2020. “Then they brainstorm.”

His program introduces algebraic concepts to his third-grade-level pupils. Most American schools don’t teach such ideas until students hit ninth grade.

Some New York City-based teachers, however, are critical of the tutoring.

“The kids [in Russian math] learn how to do the math in their head, and they’re not showing the actual work, so they make careless mistakes. They make it harder for the other kids because they start to ask them these math questions that are not age-appropriate and the other kids feel bad about themselves,” a teacher who works at an Upper West Side private school told The Post anonymously. On top of this, she added, “the parents argue with teachers that their kids can do more advanced work.”

Anna has no issues with her kids doing schoolwork at a more advanced level than their peers. After seeing Natalia’s success, she signed up her younger son, Matthew, when he was 6. He complained about doing math classes at 9 a.m. on Saturdays when his friends were playing sports, but it paid off. Matthew, now 10, was able to skip the third grade.

“I want them to understand that life is not about fun and what’s easy,” she said.

Natalia, now 14, is already gearing up to take the SATs, while her extracurriculars include swimming competitively and playing the piano. Getting into a top-tier college is key, her mother said.

“We definitely would like to try for something a bit higher than a state school.”

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