Rifkin and Khavinson have been approached by eager VCs several times over the past 20 years to invest or buy them out and have turned down every offer.

Ten thousand students? From where?вЂќДЄ decade later, Russian Math is nothing short of a phenomenon. вЂњAnd in this business plan, he wrote we would reach 10,000 students,вЂќ Rifkin says. вЂњWe never even considered ourselves businesswomen,вЂќ Rifkin says of herself and Khavinson, acknowledging that they didnвЂ™t have a proper business plan until 2009, when Ilya quit his job at a Manhattan hedge fund to join the company at his motherвЂ™s urging. These days, RSM employs a traffic cop to help keep order during pickup and drop-off at the schoolвЂ™s flagship location, which can accommodate several hundred kids at any given time.

Back then, she held classes around her dining room table, and the neighbors complained about the lines of cars coming and going. вЂњI remember we couldnвЂ™t believe it when we got 40 students that first year,вЂќ she says. Inessa Rifkin estimates that one in four elementary students in Lexington is enrolled in her after-school program the majority of kids start in second grade and continue through at least eighth, though many go all the way through high school. Online classes already have students from 24 countries, and are growing faster than RifkinвЂ™s son, Ilya, who is the CEO, can find qualified teachers to teach them.ДЄs the schoolвЂ™s birthplace-but also as a particular hotbed of do-more, get-ahead parenting-Massachusetts is ground zero for Russian Math. RSM has 53 locations in 12 states, Washington, DC, and Canada. No oneвЂ™s staring into space.ДЄbout halfway through the two-hour class she asks, вЂњQuiz or break?вЂќ The group is unanimous in its decision: Quiz it is!ДЇor Rifkin, there are two reasons to celebrate: Not only have the kids willingly chosen a quiz, but just before class began sheвЂ™d learned that the Russian School of Mathematics-the extracurricular KвЂ“12 program she cofounded with fellow Soviet Union expat Irina Khavinson in Newton 22 years ago-had surpassed 40,000 students. Not a single one has a cell phone on his or her desk. When she asks a question, her Russian accent unflinching, more than half of the students put their hands in the air.

She is in her sixties and chic in a blue-gray tunic over a crisp white button-down, skinny black pants, and a Tiffany-style silver pearl necklace. On a January afternoon at the Russian School of Mathematics headquarters, a 6,500-square-foot bilevel brick building in a Newton corporate office park, Inessa Rifkin leads 15 excitable third and fourth graders through a lesson on graphs. Today, the program has 40,000 students in 53 schools in 12 states, Washington, DC, and Canada, in addition to a booming online program. Russian School of Mathematics cofounder Inessa Rifkin started teaching kids extra math at her dining room table in Newton more than 20 years ago.

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