Kaplan
K12 Learning Services
By
Mitchell Levine
When
I was a high school student in the 1980s, the name “Kaplan” was
virtually synonymous with SAT preparation. With over three million
students served in thousands of classrooms around the world, it’s
not hard to understand why this image continues to dominate the
organization’s public perception.
Coaching students for college admissions examinations, however,
is only a small part of the services Kaplan, Inc. provides not
only to those striving to enter higher education, but to educators
looking for tools to help maximize their students’ ability.
Education professionals might not be as familiar with the complete
extent of the Kaplan K12 Learning Services. The company provides
in–school workshops at the elementary, middle-school, and high-school
levels for state-mandated assessments. It also provides the possibility
for complete custom program development.
A concrete demonstration of Kaplan’s philosophy can be found in
its print guides for teachers, such as its Test Strategies series,
available in editions appropriate for various grade levels, states,
and subject areas.
Kaplan’s Test Strategies supply teachers with up-to-date
research-based paradigms. Expositions of proven methods for meeting
the pedagogical needs of particular students take the guess-work
out of a teacher’s responsibility. This provides great benefits
to schools by helping them satisfy their legal mandates, but,
on the other hand, also frees up a teacher’s time to concentrate
on what’s most important.
Kaplan fully supports these conceptual guides with curricular-based
items, like Skills Review and Test Readiness materials, as well
as the Kaplan Achievement Planner 2.0, a Web-based service to
further supplement their print-based items. This online program
allows teachers and administrators the opportunity to use test
results data to automatically create student skill reports.
The diverse resources made available through the Kaplan K12 Learning
Services can offer the working educator the opportunity to reach
for what is often held to be one of the most important values
that schools can transmit, the concept of freedom through structure.
For more information on the Kaplan K12 programs, call 1-888-kaplan8,
or log on to the company’s website at www.kaptest.com#
Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel:
(212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
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the publisher. © 2001.
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