“Feeling very blonde right now!”
Sorry, blonds don’t use Saxon Math. I’m not buying it.
I had to think a bit too to figure out what I was dealing with.
Re: Sit and Stare/opting out of testing. Have you seen this article about the mother who got “suspended from school” after giving her kid opt-out forms for distribution? lol (I didn’t even know schools could SUSPEND parents?! Ban someone? Sure. But “suspend”… what is she, 12???)
http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2014/03/california-mom-suspended-sons-school-passing-test-opt-form/
I would have been livid if my kid asked to call me in this kind of situation and was denied.
“Have you seen this article about the mother who got “suspended from school” after giving her kid opt-out forms for distribution?”
She was caught off guard. As a parent, you do have to understand how you’re viewed by the schools (and it’s not pretty). The best thing for her to do, to the extent that she could, would have been to distribute those forms to the parents outside of school. But sending in the kid with the forms was not that unreasonable, and the school’s reaction was to be expected.
She pushed her luck with them and will probably survive, but could just as easily be facing huge legal bills and jail time. The school can tell the police anything they want, and the police will listen to them (i.e., the ‘experts’, as opposed to a lunatic parent).
That’s funny and so sad.
Our kids here only do one national test each 2 years in grades 3,5 and 7. It’s 3 hours long for three days in a row for math, writing and English conventions. When I found out our school was sending emails to parents of the failing kids giving them an opt out as it may cause undue stress on their child I actually emailed ALL the parents in the grade encouraging them to have their kids sit the test. My reasoning at the time was that this is quite simply THE ONLY chance for us as parents to hold our school accountable for the education (or lack there off) that our kids received. My comments were if your child has only been at this school since prep and they hit grade 3 and can’t read there is ONLY one place to blame. If you sit the test it will harm their reputation ( test results as a whole school are public knowledge) and they will do better next time. By opting out you help them lie about their results. The school had no comeback on me as encouraging parents NOT to sit the tests is illegal and they would have got a big old slap on the wrist lol
I doubt I would think the same if my kids had tests as often as American kids seem to!
Serious Question for Robert:
Did you have David only go through the textbooks, or did he also take the “tests” - stated differently, text book only or homeschool kit?
I’m more interested in knowing how this worked in the upper mathematics, Alg 1 +
Hi PDad,
Simple answer: No. I figured, for a number of reasons, that the tests were not needed. Here’s my rationale:
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The spiral method of Saxon automatically works in the entire reason for a test, which is to review material an additional time, with the objective of understanding it.
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Our pace was so quick that David was not going to forget material anyway. If you do 5 hours of math in a week, it is a side hobby, if you do 15 hours, it’s a profession. David was obviously closer to 15 hours (if not a bit more). Also, the idea of a summer break didn’t happen for him - and it was actually an opportunity for us, as he had more time to work on the material.
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He actually did every problem twice, in that I made him check his work. He didn’t care whether he got them right or wrong, as long as he put something on paper - but I cared - so instead of getting an average of 70% right, by checking he was closer to 90 to 95% right.
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He did every problem and he eventually got every problem right. In almost all cases where he was stumped, I could give him clues so that he could get to answer. In a very small number of problems, I did actually work it through for him. But, unlike schools, getting “enough” right was never sufficient, he had to be able to do every problem in a given section, before we moved on.
Also, I took advantage of the lack of summer breaks to let him skip the early sections in the earlier books - in the earliest ones, such as Math 65, he skipped the first 40 sections. It was all review, and he was just doing that work a few days prior - so why do it again.
I’d recommend that approach to anyone…in 12 months we completed the first 5 Saxon Math books. At that point I purposely slowed down, simply because I had promised him a laptop after Algebra 2, and I didn’t feel like spending the money then. Yes, it was a high workload at the time, but the net hours he spent learning the material was half (or less) than what he would have spent at a “normal” pace.
The thing to keep in mind is that your kid only has to cover the material once - so if you cover 5 years of math in 12 months those are 5 years that he doesn’t have to struggle through later.
For the later classes, same thing, although we didn’t skip as many sections at the beginning, as the overlap was not nearly as much. For the Advanced Math (pre-Calc) book, he did every section, starting at the beginning (lots of material in that book…forget about getting through 2 or 3 sections in a day).
Just to clarify some stuff. Stephen Hake actually wrote the books what he is co author for. He came across John Saxon’s controversial articles in some teachers or Maths publication when he was searching for idea to teach his middle school students. John Saxon hit home for him because the Saxon method was how Hake was already teaching his students successfully with. Hakes was a teacher and had experience in the classroom, Saxon never did. Hake approached Saxon and offered to write a series for middle school. Saxon said okay. After Hake had written the curriculum, or adjusted what he had already been teaching, Saxon approved and published it. I think that credit is due to Hake too. Some of the books have been amended over the years to fix flow issues and any typographical errors. And a series has been written and published for the schools. Hake says it is very similar but due to copywriter issues they have to change things.
When Saxon publishing changed hands though, that is when the editions changed. And then, Nancy Larson was enlisted to write the elementary books, which have a very different format. Hale also wrote several intermediate books for between elementary and 5/4.
I really don’t understand the hullabaloo about testing. Here in Ohio they tests aren’t that hard. The tests aren’t tricks. They are just testing what the child should be competent with. Children with learning disabilities or cognitive delays get accommodations. The kids get chances to practice past tests so that they are comfortable with them. The girl I tutored who was a D grade student all around was able to pass the tests with proficiency.
We had tests all the time when I was a kid, in Australia. They weren’t these big giant tests. But almost weekly or at least once a month our teachers gave us tests. It let them know where the 25 or so students in their classes were academically. I don’t recall anyone suffering from test anxiety. We did our tests, then went out to play. There was no detriment. If a child was sick, there would be a make up test. It was no biggie.
How else are we going to know how well our kids are doing in school. We wait too long and then children start to lag in class.
Not to start a debate, but the hulabaloo about testing has very little to do with parents not wanting their kids to be tested. It is more about not wanting to take national tests, not wanting to be part of the data mining the common core tests do as far as questions about religion, political preferences, etc, and wanting to keep things more local. All I’m saying is that it’s a lot more complicated than test anxiety. I don’t know enough about it to give solid facts or references at this point, but I do hear enough of the discussions in the homeschooling community to know that these are the common objections.
Another reason parents oppose it is that teachers’ bonuses or school bonuses may be based on the the scores, which creates a high pressure environment for teachers and administration. Then teachers spend the majority of their time “teaching to the test” in a very contrived fashion without the freedom to allow good teachers to teach in the manner they teach best. And people question the educational value or feeding kids answers to a test so they can regurgitate it for the sake of a score.
It would be like someone coming in your house and telling you that you needed to parent your child in a specific way…you know you’re a good parent and you’re being asked to parent in a way that is not your natural style (be it authoritarian, authoritative, uninvolved, or permissive), or that this style might not be right for the child, and that they can learn better another way, but hey, rules are rules. So that’s what you have to do. And instead of capturing teachable moments, you basically are required to follow the script and parent-by-number everyday…becoming a sub-optimal parent and creating sub-optimal children in the process who are having the same cookie cutter experience as every other “equalized” child across the nation.
From what I can tell it is similar for teachers. First, they must “follow the recipe” to teach to the test to get their individual and/or school bonuses, or just not get fired. It’s enough to even encourage some teachers and administrators to go in and change the bubble answers after hours…it’s happened more than once! Then later, when enough schools are “following the recipe” to get their race to the top funding (which dribbles in like cocaine fixes for lab rats) these methods/curriculum/watered down educational approaches can be turned into law on a national level because there is so much buy in already and now the schools are depending on the money. It is no longer treated as bonus in their budget, they’ve come to expect it so they are going to do what they need to do to keep it rolling in. And like Robert Levy posted, if you think that “fighting” with your local school board is a nightmare, then try and “fight” a garbage curriculum on a national level. Forget it.
So the testing is just part of this big, ugly scheme to keep the hamster wheel turning. I don’t know enough about it to fully debate it, but these are my initial impressions from what little I’ve read. Maybe I’m full of it. But nationalized education just allows SO MUCH control as to what kids are/are not exposed to. Call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but say over the next 20 years they water down education every couple of years a little more through textbook revisions…the population could be fed anything the “powers that be” want them to be fed. I am not saying the majority of people in positions of power are bad, but it would allow sooooo much room for abuse! Think about the agriculture industry, or the pharmaceutical industry, or government contracting…those deals are HUGE. There is some BIG MONEY involved. And when there’s big money involved, there is almost always corruption. Introducing a bad math book on a national level because someone was offered a nice, fat check on the side or a new sports car could impact the outcome of an entire generation.
Now, I know there are bad teachers and maybe they need these kinds of regulations, but the effective teachers will have their hands tied behind their back…most likely cutting all the tall poppies in the process.
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.
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.
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 :mellow: …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.
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!
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.
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!
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, :ohmy:
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! :biggrin:
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/
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.