SAXON MATH – WHEN USED CORRECTLY – IS STILL THE BEST MATH CURRICULUM!
Over the last twenty-some years, I have heard just about every story told by public and private school classroom teachers, school administrators, and home school educators about how difficult John Saxon’s math books are. I believe that home school educators who speak poorly about John Saxon’s math books are like the classroom teachers and administrators I encountered who always blamed the math book for students’ poor showing. They never became aware that misusing John Saxon’s math books was a major contributing factor to the student’s difficulty. They never received or asked for any special training on how to correctly use John Saxon’s math books. Why should they? After all, isn’t one math textbook just like another?
More than a 30 years ago, while briefing the superintendent of a large school district in Colorado I related to him – from my observations – that the vast majority of the district’s math teachers were not properly using John Saxon’s math books. His district had been using (rather misusing) John’s books for more than five years and the students’ math scores were getting worse, not better! I told him that it was not the books, but rather this misuse of the books that accounted for the district’s failing math scores.
In the middle of my briefing, he stopped me and said, “What I hear you saying Art, is that we bought a new car, and since we already knew how to drive, we saw no reason to read the owner’s manual – wouldn’t you agree?” To which I replied “It’s worse than that, sir! You all thought you had purchased a car with an automatic transmission, but Saxon is a stick shift! It is critical that certain procedures be followed, just as well as some are dropped, or you will strip the gears!” I went on to tell him that while I was not the owner of the company, if John Saxon were here today, standing up here addressing them under these circumstances, he would tell them to either use his books correctly or get rid of them, and blame someone else’s textbooks for the failing grades. They ultimately followed my advice and the students’ scores – as well as everyone’s spirits – increased.
On another occasion while briefing administrators at a school district in the state of Missouri – whose math teachers were guilty of the same misuse – I promised their superintendent the same results I had promised the superintendent in Colorado – that if they would make some adjustments and use the books correctly, they would develop a successful math program and their students’ math scores would go up. The district decided to implement the changes I had recommended. About eighteen months later, I received a letter from the superintendent. She wrote that their middle school students had scored the highest of any middle school in the state on their end-of-year math exams.
During these past several decades of advising and assisting homeschool parents about curriculum choices for their children, I noticed many of their calls and email to me are the result of them having received inaccurate or inadequate – sometimes downright erroneous – advice. This erroneous advice comes from other home school parents, discussion groups, well-meaning but uninformed or inexperienced publishing company employees, or from well meaning, but inexperienced employees of homeschool textbook distributors.
With all the new math books and supplemental math products on the market today – and textbook publishers promising every home school parent that if you use their books, your sons and daughters will score well on the ACT or SAT tests or pass the Common Core exams − I thought it appropriate to take this opportunity to defend John’s math books for the benefit of the home school educators and their students. I do not sell John Saxon’s math books – I never have! But I firmly believe that John’s math books remain the best math textbooks on the market today. I also believe that some of these new book fads – openly advertising how their product makes math fun – will ultimately leave your child short of mastering the requisite fundamentals of mathematics necessary to succeed in the collegiate realm of engineering, architecture, science, medicine, et al.
Students fail calculus – not because they do not understand the calculus – but because they never mastered the fundamentals of algebra, and they will fail a basic algebra course if they have not mastered the concepts of decimals, fractions and percents – without a calculator! John Saxon’s math books were designed to create mastery of mathematics at all levels, and the infusion of repetition over time creates this mastery at every level for every student who uses John Saxon’s math books properly. (Referred to by Dr. Benjamin Bloom as “automaticity”)
While home school students have a great deal more academic flexibility than the public or private classroom students do, they can just as easily fall prey to the same difficulties in mathematics as the public classroom students if they are using one of John Saxon’s math books incorrectly. Parents of home school students who have displayed poor progress while using John Saxon’s math books, generally have unknowingly contributed to the student’s poor performance by taking shortcuts and preventing the student from receiving the full benefit of John Saxon’s methods.