Tutoring is one of the most effective tools for improving a child’s education, yet very few kids in the United States receive it. A 2023 survey of the nation’s largest school districts found that fewer than ten percent of students received tutoring. One major factor is that tutoring is too expensive for many families, often costing hundreds or thousands of dollars a month.
Tim Novikoff, a former Google product manager and educator, wants to change that. His startup, Super Teacher, offers an AI-powered tutoring app for elementary school students that costs fifteen dollars a month, or ten dollars with an annual plan. The company aims to make private tutoring accessible to families nationwide.
The four-year-old startup is gaining traction. Novikoff says roughly twenty thousand families have signed up for Super Teacher, and public schools in New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii now use the app. Super Teacher is a Startup Battlefield Top 20 finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco.
Novikoff was previously a math teacher in New York City, first in Harlem and then at a highly rated public school, Stuyvesant High School. In an interview, he said almost all the students at Stuyvesant received tutoring, whereas many of the students in Harlem did not. He observed that the difference in their educational experience was stark.
He stated that tutoring is by far the most effective intervention that can be provided to kids for education, and that it is not even close. He believes it is really unfair that not everyone gets this opportunity, which is why he is pursuing a mission to democratize access to private tutoring.
Super Teacher’s app features animated tutors with AI-generated voices that guide students through interactive lessons. Students talk to the app using their voice, like a conversation with a teacher. But unlike many educational technology tools, Super Teacher does not use large language models to generate responses. Instead, its content comes from a deterministic system designed to always give correct answers, avoiding the inaccuracies that can plague other AI models.
Novikoff thinks AI tutors can have a valuable impact on children’s lives, but he is adamant that AI will never replace teachers in a school setting. He refers to AI tutors as a tool that teachers can use, similar to smart boards or calculators, rather than a replacement altogether.
Super Teacher is only available for elementary school students, a decision Novikoff made to help his own children and because few educational technology companies target that age group. Looking ahead, he hopes to expand to younger and older grades and partner with more school districts across the United States.
Novikoff previously founded Fly Labs, a mobile video-editing app that was acquired by Google in 2015.