We Can Do by Moshe Kai with guest Robert Levy discussing Saxon Math.

[Korrale4kq]

I think that somewhere along the way people have got it into their minds that what is tested is the Maxium that each child should be taught. In some low performing school districts that may be the case.  But it shouldn't be the norm across the nation. But this is not the case at all. CC are MINIUM standards. And the test should not be a challenge to an average performing student. Even a below average student should be able to be proficient.
 I just have such a hard time wrapping my head around if being a bad idea that a child can walk out of any 3rd grade classroom anywhere in the US at the end of the year, iand right into any 4th grade classroom anywhere else when the new school year starts, and be on the same level, with the same skill set as the majority of their new peers. My teacher friends are actually loving the idea of CC because of this. No more inheriting children that are all over the place academically.
CC and standardized testing does not stop a teacher from inserting their unique teaching style. It is at the  discretion of the teacher to push a child, to challenge them. If poppys are being cut, they are being cut in individual classrooms, not due to a minium benchmark that each student needs to rise above. I had teachers that pushed me, teachers that didn't, and this was a different country with different educational goals.

Tamsyn, I think data mint in has always happened. I don't think it is anything new... But that is one area I am not familar with.

[Robert Levy]

Since everyone else weighed in, so will I.  David had an experience in 3rd grade, at a Christian school, that would have been debilitating had we not taken control of his education.  He had the nicest teacher in the world that year, but she loved birds, and that was pretty much what she concentrated on the entire school year - lots of projects, field trips, etc., all to study birds.  By the end of the year, I could point to any bird in our part of Texas and David could identify it by its look and chirping, and tell me a bit about how it lived (where it made nests, how many eggs it laid, etc.).  The kids loved her, and she loved teaching.

Of course the problem was that there are only so many hours in a day, and this very sweet teacher didn't have much time to be bothered with teaching math and reading - at least based on his lack of homework and what he told me about his class days.  Obviously that didn't affect David, but the idea that the rest of the kids pretty much lost a year of their education because of her was not a pretty thought.

I suspect that she was not alone, and that there many other teachers like her, in one way or the other.  Maybe they watch educational movies for much of the day, or do other fun activities (extended arts and crafts, for example), but in the end the kids are not learning and the parents, generally, either don't know that or are intimidated enough to not challenge the schools.  I believe the push for testing was to once and for all identify those teachers hold them accountable.  The resistance to testing, at least initially, was from the teachers unions, which, like all other unions, exist primarily to protect their least productive workers.  The complaints from them about being forced to "teach to the test" always struck me as a bit odd.  If the test is determining whether the kid meets the state standard of being able to divide fractions by the end of third grade, for example, then I would want the teachers to "teach to the test", rather than be free to be creative and have the kids out bird watching once or twice a week.

But in the end, there is so much blame to go around, I don't think it will matter...as there are so many parties to blame for this mess we call education in the United States that it will not be cleaned up, at least not in my lifetime.  For example, teachers blame the parents for not caring.  I didn't think that was true until my wife spent a week as a substitute at that same school.  The kids figured they would have a free ride that week, but she had none of that and assigned home work and pop quizzes.  For that, she was "talked to" by the principal.  The kids complained to their parents about such a "mean" teacher, and the parents complained to the principal.  Again, this was a private school, and the parents were paying to send their kids there.  My wife was never invited back to substitute.

So, from an individual perspective, my suggestion is that you simply don't rely on schools for anything more daycare and you take care of the rest yourself.  When your kids are young they are either not in school yet, or they are in school, but don't have much homework.  Either way, there is actually a lot of time to take care of their primary education.  As they get older that time gets filled...often with homework, and of course, busy work (i.e., "group projects").  So don't let the opportunities slip away.

[TeachingMyToddlers]

In Chicago public schools they are usually dealing with extremely low income students. I am generalizing here, please forgive me for that, but I am going off what a teacher friend explained to me. The at-risk children (which is most of them in many areas) are constantly missing class, and when they do come to school they haven't had their basic needs met so they are not prepared to learn (good nutrition, sleep, hygiene/clean clothing, emotional support at home, abusive homes, single mom situations, etc). Basically they miss so much school that they just can't miss anymore or the parent will face criminal charges. So to avoid fines and jailtime, the child goes off to live with an aunt, friend, grandma, or mom moves in with new boyfriend, and so on and the cycle continues. Just totally unstable. So the teachers pretty much have to be on page 72 on a specific day to accommodate the kids playing musical schools.  They actually created a Chicago public school truancy task force to deal with excessive absences....something like 32000 kids missed over 4 weeks of schools in a year. And that's just K-8!

Anyway, some districts like Chicago have been doing this previously, just not in a national level. Does it help? Their schools are still really terrible....maybe doing things this way makes them slightly less horrific. I would imagine so.


In regards to standardized testing....wow. 25 district mandated standardized tests in a school year   ....Now that's a lot of bubbles to fill in. No wonder they had no time to learn anything. They have since dropped down to 10.

http://www.cps.edu/Spotlight/Pages/spotlight461.aspx

After working with hundreds of parents, teachers, students, administrators and researchers over the past several months, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett announced today that she will streamline the amount of District-required standardized testing currently administered by CPS. The streamlining of assessments will mean the elimination of 15 District-mandated tests including elimination of fall standardized testing for all CPS grades. This school year, CPS will require 10 District-mandated standardized tests across all grades, a decrease from 25 District-mandated standardized tests last school year.
 
Beginning in February, the District hosted meetings with 17 focus groups made up of parents, teachers, principals and other education stakeholders, the majority of whom agreed that focusing too intensely on test preparation can crowd out the valuable learning time that is so critical to student success.
 
“As  a former teacher and principal, I heard loud and clear the concerns of our parents and educators that over-testing is not in the best interests of our children, thus I recognize the need to pursue a policy that increases valuable learning time,” said CEO Byrd-Bennett.

[PokerDad]

A year ago I purchased most of the Saxon collection - I was only missing the Calculus & Alg 2 books. However, I did see that my 76 books were 2nd edition. I went ahead and bit the bullet here and ordered the 3rd edition (about $30 total). I'll review the content and post if I notice anything interesting.

For the upper math books, I purchased only a teacher's edition. It will have all the answers in the back. I also purchased solution manuals.

If you use Abebooks and Amazon (and I'm sure there are other sites like ebay, etc) you can acquire the collection fairly affordably. If you want the full kit, then it's significantly more costly.

I know it might seem silly purchasing all these now, well before they're needed, but my worry was that since they're mostly out of print, that the supply would be significantly smaller as time goes on. Homeschoolers seem to love these enough that I don't foresee demand shrinking all that much.

Thank you for your response Robert. It was very helpful!
 

[Robert Levy]

You're welcome P-Dad.  I recommend that to everyone here.  Buy as many of the original Saxon books as you can, as soon as possible.  Math isn't optional - your kids will be taught math one way or another, and I can't imagine a better way than Saxon.  The books are getting older by the year, and more and more are being tossed out.  The ones that I used with David stay in a box and will (and have) come with me during hurricane evacuations.  I keep them now for his kids.

After John Saxon died, and especially after his kids sold off the company (I'll never forgive him for not leaving the company to his #2 man, Frank Wang instead), most schools that used them, private and public did away with them - since there was no longer anyone pushing back against Big Textbook (as I call the "mainstream" publishers).  At that point, or so I read once, China moved in took possession of the books at no cost, since they were headed to landfills anyway.  What that all means is that the supply is dwindling and it's going to get tougher and tougher to find the right editions, in good condition.

[Mandabplus3]

The supply is already dropping. I still don't have any of the algebra books or the calculus book. Not from lack of looking...just a bit harder to get a reasonable price PLUS shipping to Australia. I will probably have to use newer ones if I don't get some soon.

[TheyCan]

The supply is already dropping. I still don't have any of the algebra books or the calculus book. Not from lack of looking...just a bit harder to get a reasonable price PLUS shipping to Australia. I will probably have to use newer ones if I don't get some soon.

Am I wrong that the editions recommended (in the earlier post - copied by Poker Dad) are easily available new?  Besides being more expensive, what am I missing here? For example - here's the third edition of Algebra 1 by John Saxon.  Obviously, I really must be missing something because there's lots of talk about the editions... http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/000628/ebd11c79070f21c0909c1575

Also, I did buy the 7/6 hardcover 3rd edition book and now I'm regretting it because I can't find a solutions manual anywhere.  Was it called something different? I can't find any listings for one on Amazon (or anywhere else).  Does anybody have a link??   Thank you!

[Mandabplus3]

Yes I think many of those in that post are still available new as in they are the current edition. The issue I have is shipping is about $40 on top per book to me. Which I don't mind paying but it annoys me that it's more than the book itself, 
Answer keys are still tricky to get for me too. I am marking them all now by doing the problems myself. Not an ideal solution that's for sure! It takes me too long to get the marking done, and the kids get too far ahead before I spot their mistakes.
Geez it would be good to get the entire set in PDF with an answer book set also in PDF! Or even just the answers in PDF!
Homeschool editions and teachers editions have the answers in them. Some have them in the he back of the book other teachers editions are question with the answer printed right next to it. You want the ones with the answers in the he back, oh it would be fun to go to an American 2nd hand book sale and pick them up!   

[TeachingMyToddlers]

More details about Common Core essay questions: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/23/parent-to-obama-let-me-tell-you-about-the-common-core-test-malia-and-sasha-dont-have-to-take-but-eva-does/

[Robert Levy]

I had a longer post that just got wiped out by a browser crash, but it's probably just as well.  To summarize it in simple terms - if you beg the people that have given a broken system to fix that system, you will be waiting very, very, long, for results - and unfortunately your kids are growing up and will lose the only chance they have to be proficient in math and reading, if you wait for "the system" to get fixed.

This lady's kids would be much better off if she spent her time trying to get her kids out of that system, in some way, rather than hoping the president will come to her rescue.

[nee1]

Wajih Ahmed, one of the Ahmed boys, admitted to Southampton University at age 14. Aims for a first class degree. If all goes according to plan, he'll be graduating at 17. His father's plan worked.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/maths-genius-14-to-become-one-1263934   (According to Mirror News, Wajih will be able to concentrate on his studies as he isn't old enough to enjoy the student's union bar )

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-19294779

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210093/Child-genius-14-Britains-youngest-university-students-picking-A-levels.html

[Krista G]

I was reading this article on The Love-Hate Relationship with Saxon Math.  In light of what has been discussed here I thought this was interesting.  What are your thoughts?  You can read the whole article here.  http://homeschoolreviews.com/forums/1/thread.aspx?id=92223

MIXING OUTDATED EDITIONS WITH NEWER ONES: There is nothing wrong with using the older out-of-print editions of John Saxon’s original math books so long as you use all of them – from Math 54 to Math 87. However, for the student to be successful in the new third edition of Algebra 1, the student has to go from the older first edition of Math 87 to the second or third edition of Algebra ½ before attempting the third edition of the Saxon Algebra 1 course.

But when you start with a first edition of the Math 54 book in the fourth grade and then move to a second or third edition of Math 65 for the fifth grade; or you move from a first or second edition of the sixth grade Math 76 book to a second or third edition of the seventh grade Math 87 book, you are subjecting the students to a frustrating challenge which in some cases does not allow them to make up the gap they encounter when they move from an academically weaker text to an academically stronger one.

The new second or third editions of the fifth grade Saxon Math 65 are stronger in academic content then the older first edition of the sixth grade Math 76 book. Moving from the former to the latter is like skipping a book and going from a fifth grade to a seventh grade textbook. Again, using the entire selection of John’s original first edition math books is okay so long as you do not attempt to go from one of the old editions to a newer edition. If you must do this, please email or call me for assistance before you make the change.

[PokerDad]

As someone that just upgraded from 2nd to 3rd edition of 7/6 I can verify that there is a HUGE difference in content (quality and quantity). The book is about twice the size. As long as you're not using 1st edition of the prior books, you should be okay.

From that article, I noticed this quote:
As John would say, ”Doing precedes Understanding - Understanding does not precede doing.”

It seems like something Robert might say... and I might point out, completely disagrees with modern pedagogy and "best practices" that attempt to teach understanding before doing (or doing complicated methods in an attempt to understand)

[Krista G]

Are you saying that the 2nd edition is thicker than the 3rd?

[PokerDad]

No, 3rd edition is twice the size of the 2nd edition. According to A. Reed (who posted that article), as long as you don't use 1st edition of the prior books, you should be okay once you get to 7/6 3rd edition.

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