Study Haul: Park Slope Parent Paying Professionals To Do Their Kid’s Homework

The popular saying used to be “my dog ate my homework.” The new saying taking its place? “My top dog did my homework.”

27-year-old Ivy League-educated Ben pocketed $350 for a book report on John Knowles’ 1959 coming-of-age novel A Separate Peace.

However it wasn’t for his personal enrichment or an attempt to relive his junior high school years.

The 500-word essay Ben wrote was turned in by a 13-year-old Park Slope student, according to a report by the New York Post.

“[The mom and I operate] under the polite fiction I write a paper that is to be used as a ‘guideline’,” Ben told the Post. “But I think we all know that’s not true.”

Ben — who asked to have her last name withheld — advertises her services on craigslist, and certainly isn’t the only one earning lucrative fees by doing homework assignments for students whose parents are willing to pay them top dollar to do so.

In this case, the Park Slope student is taking an honors class. And her parents are willing to foot the bill for an ‘A’.

According to the Post report, parents all over the more tony neighborhoods in NYC are shelling out the bucks.

So how do parents justify the logic of this pay-per-do?

“We all have assistants, right? I explained to my daughter it was the same thing,” says one financier who lives in Battery Park. “She’s a hard worker, but she was incredibly stressed out and stretched thin … I don’t believe that homework assignments necessarily groom you for success.”

So what’s there to be done about this? Should teachers start requiring handwritten papers and cross-check the students’ handwriting?

For now, perhaps you can post a craigslist ad, offer to read A Separate Peace, and charge $325 instead of $350.

Knowles’ novel is set in a prep school full of student jealousy and competition. In the Park Slope case, it seems as if life is very much imitating art.