I repeatedly watched parents hypnotised by the dubious dream of some sort of intellectual osmosis, passing accomplishment like a cold, from tutor to pupil.
"I was incredibly livid that I never got a call from Tutor Time telling me that they knew about the toxic site," she said.
Cropper said of his colleague's playing that its uniqueness sprang from the fact that he was mainly self-taught, rather than learning from tutor books.
The state's decision has attracted criticism from Tutor Our Children, an industry-backed lobbying group that is pushing to include a version of the tutoring mandate when Congress takes up the law's reauthorization.
Leslie McCarthy, a Westbury resident who withdrew her 3-year-old son, Kevin, and 17-month-old daughter, Grace, from Tutor Time after the news spread, said she had been told that enrollment was down to 40 from nearly full capacity in September.
Other vocal learners, like songbirds, copy groups of song elements or song types from tutor songs and combine these in their own song.
