Parents Are Spending Thousands on Private Educational Services-What Is That Telling Us?

Recently, I came across an article titled "Parents Are Spending Thousands on Services Schools Won't Provide."

Full article:https://www.inkl.com/news/parents-are-spending-thousands-on-services-schools-wont-provide

As both an educator and a parent, I found myself reflecting on the stories shared in the article long after I finished reading it. While the specific families and circumstances may differ, the underlying theme is one I see every day through my work at My Learning Farm: parents are increasingly building their own educational support systems outside of school.

The article highlights families spending significant amounts of money on tutoring, educational therapy, executive functioning coaching, evaluations, mental health services, specialized reading intervention, and academic support. While some may view these services as optional extras, many families do not. For them, these services have become essential tools for helping their children succeed.

What struck me most was not the amount of money being spent. It was the question that lingers beneath the surface of every story:

Why are so many families feeling the need to seek additional support outside of school?

The New Educational Reality

For many families, education no longer begins and ends with the school day. A child may attend school from morning until afternoon, then head to a reading specialist, a math tutor, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, a counselor, or an executive functioning coach. Families are coordinating schedules, researching resources, attending meetings, reviewing reports, and trying to determine what their children need to be successful.

This isn't limited to families whose children have diagnosed learning differences. Increasingly, parents of students who are performing at grade level—or even above grade level—are also seeking outside support to strengthen skills, build confidence, reduce stress, or help their children reach their potential. In many ways, families are creating educational villages around their children and there is something beautiful about that.

Children often thrive when caring adults work together to support their growth. The challenge, however, is that building this village requires time, money, knowledge, and persistence. Not every family has equal access to those resources.

This Isn't About Blaming Schools

Whenever conversations like this emerge, people often rush to assign blame. Some point fingers at schools. Others blame parents, curriculum, technology, or educational policies. I don't believe that is the most productive response. Most teachers I know work incredibly hard. They care deeply about their students and often go above and beyond to support them. Yet they are also working within systems that ask them to meet the needs of twenty-five or thirty students, all of whom arrive with different strengths, challenges, backgrounds, and learning profiles.

The issue is not whether teachers care-the issue is whether our educational systems are designed to provide every student with the level of individualized support they may need at exactly the right time- that is a much harder question to answer.

Families Are Sending Us a Message

One of the greatest lessons I've learned through educational consultations, academic assessments, and advocacy work is that parents are remarkably resourceful. When they sense something isn't working, they start looking for answers. They read books, join support groups, attend workshops, listen to podcasts, seek evaluations, hire tutors, purchase curricula, and advocate relentlessly for their children.

Parents don't do this because they enjoy spending their evenings researching educational interventions. They do it because they love their children and want to help them succeed. When thousands of families across the country are independently making similar decisions, we should pay attention. Families are providing valuable feedback about what they believe their children need.

Our Family's Experience

As I read the article, I couldn't help but reflect on my own family's educational journey. Over the years, my husband Nick and I have invested well over $200,000 in our children's education through tutoring, private evaluations, specialized support, enrichment opportunities, academic intervention, professional guidance, curricula, educational services, certifications, online parent trainings, online courses, even enrolling in a special education credential program.

But if I'm being honest, the financial investment is only part of the story. What that number doesn't capture are the countless hours behind it. It doesn't capture the late nights spent researching dyslexia, reading intervention, executive functioning, and learning differences after my children had gone to bed. It doesn't capture the weekends spent attending trainings, completing coursework, and studying educational research because I was determined to better understand how my children learned. It doesn't capture the many drives to Oakland for certifications and specialized training. It doesn't capture the online courses completed late at night, the books stacked on my nightstand, the webinars, the conferences, the notebooks full of ideas, or the years spent building expertise because I needed answers that I couldn't find elsewhere.

Some parents hire experts-In many ways, I decided to become one. Not because I was planning to start a business. Not because I wanted another certification, but because I was a mom trying to help her children. Like many parents, I was searching for resources that didn't seem readily available. I wanted to understand reading difficulties. I wanted to understand math struggles. I wanted to understand how the brain learns and why some children thrive with certain approaches while others continue to struggle.

So I learned and I kept learning. What began as a journey to support my own children eventually became the foundation for My Learning Farm and the work I now do supporting other families. There has rarely been a year in our children's educational journeys when we weren't utilizing some type of outside support. Sometimes it was a reading specialist. Sometimes it was a math tutor. Sometimes it was a private evaluation that helped us better understand how one of our children learned. Sometimes it was a coach, mentor, or subject-matter expert who could provide expertise that we simply didn't have.

As an educator, people often assume I handled everything myself- the truth is quite the opposite. I love working with my own children. Some of my favorite memories are sitting at the kitchen table, helping with assignments, talking through challenges, and celebrating victories. But being a parent also means recognizing when someone else can help your child in ways that you can't.

When high school chemistry entered the picture, I knew we needed help. Advanced math? We needed help there too. There were moments when bringing in another professional didn't just benefit my child—it preserved our relationship. Sometimes I needed to step back and simply be Mom and for that, I am incredibly grateful. I'm grateful for the tutors who explained concepts differently.

I'm grateful for the specialists who gave us answers. I'm grateful for the professionals who saw strengths we hadn't yet recognized. I'm grateful for the village that helped our children become who they are today.

I also recognize how fortunate we were to have access to those resources.

Many families don't-Dyslexia is often touted as the "wealthy family learning disabilty" because if you have money you can hire support (so they say).

That is the part that stays with me after reading this article because while I am thankful we were able to build that village, I can't help but wonder how many children never receive the support they need simply because their families lack the time, financial resources, knowledge, or connections to access it.

That is not a parenting problem.

That is an educational equity problem.

And it's a conversation worth having.

What If We Did Better Earlier?

As I reflected on the article, I kept returning to a simple thought: what if we addressed more challenges earlier? What if struggling readers were identified sooner? What if evidence-based reading instruction was consistently implemented in every classroom? What if students received targeted intervention before they fell significantly behind? What if families had easier access to clear information, practical resources, and effective support? What if we spent less time chasing educational trends and more time implementing practices supported by research? Imagine how many families might avoid years of frustration if support arrived earlier in a child's educational journey.

A Better Path Forward

I don't believe the solution is more testing. I don't believe the solution is more paperwork. And I don't believe the solution is another educational initiative that disappears after a few years.

Instead, I believe we need to strengthen the fundamentals:

• Early identification of learning challenges

• Science of Reading-based literacy instruction

• Evidence-based structured literacy practices

• Strong math instruction grounded in research

• High-quality teacher preparation and professional development

• Multi-sensory teaching approaches

• Support for students with learning differences

• Meaningful partnerships between schools and families

• Accountability for student outcomes

Most importantly, we need to listen carefully to what families are telling us.

The Real Takeaway

The article focuses on the growing number of families spending money on services schools do not provide. But I think the deeper story is not about tutoring, educational therapy, or academic intervention. The deeper story is about parents.

Parents who are willing to do whatever they can to help their children succeed.

Parents who spend evenings researching resources. Parents who advocate in meetings. Parents who drive to appointments. Parents who invest their time, energy, and finances because they believe their children deserve every opportunity to thrive. At the end of the day, families aren't asking for perfection.

They're asking for partnership. They're asking for support. They're asking for educational systems that recognize children learn differently and respond accordingly. And perhaps most importantly, they're asking to be heard.

If we listen carefully, there is a great deal we can learn from the choices families are making. Those choices aren't simply trends. They are feedback. And they may be telling us exactly where education needs to go next.

As both a parent and an educator, I remain hopeful. We know more about how children learn than ever before. We have stronger research, better tools, and more evidence-based practices than previous generations. The opportunity before us is not to ask families to do less for their children. It is to build educational systems that work so well that fewer families feel they must carry such a heavy burden alone. Because every child deserves the opportunity to thrive, and every family deserves a partner on that journey.