California! Your Saxon Math Books Have Been Located!

Parents in California — you must be horrified by the damage done to your children and their math scores following the loss of those efficient, effective John Saxon authored math books. I cannot fathom any rational plan of action, other than to retrieve them. What a terrible shame that they were lost in the first place. No one ever again wants to see California score just above Guam in academics.

Yes…the good news is that I have some excellent leads on where your Saxon math books are being used. The bad news is that the books appear to have migrated to many third world countries across the globe.

LRC readers write to me from all over the world. In the last few days I have received email from Istanbul, Korea, the Persian Gulf, The Philippines, Peru, England, India… My readers/scouts are searching for the books in their countries, and reporting their findings back to me. Just today I learned that Saxon math books from Black Mountain Middle School, 9353 Oviedo Street, San Diego, CA, have been located in The Philippines.

California!! How in the world could you lose such a wealth of instructional materials and have them end up practically on the other side of the globe?? It would seem that you either have a severe security problem, or you have a dire administrative problem. I would encourage you to think about all of the children who have been, and are being damaged by such laxity and move immediately to claim your lost books.

I suggest that your only choice is to get those Saxon materials back in the hands of children who need real math educations, instead of new-new-math tomfoolery. Additionally, I would suggest that you demand a statewide investigation — of all school districts. Demand to know who made the decisions to dispose of such excellent books and then spend further taxpayer monies to replace them with inferior ones. If I were a parent there, I would demand accountability, even if I had to organize a massive demonstration and walk a picket line yelling, “Off with their heads!”

Your children, your grandchildren, your neighborhood children, all are paying the price of stupid decisions — to sell off, or give away, the quality materials that your tax monies purchased. Those someones should pay for such massive errors in judgment; for such a lack of intelligence. When one considers the human toll — ignoring for a moment the financial loss at many layers — it is rather easy to conclude that prison would be too good for such scoundrels. Surely you want to know if such persons really sold out the value of your children to a high bidding textbook company.

Maybe we could bring back tar, feathers, and riding scoundrels out of town on a rail… It does have a certain appeal.

Demand that California get back to the business of truly educating children using proven, traditional methods and materials. The futures you save may be those of your own children and grandchildren. Do you not want the best for them?

Ahem…Alabama – through – Wyoming…my scouts are finding Saxon math books from your states as well, so do not become smug. It is only a matter of time before citizens and parents in your states realize that school districts have pulled the wool over their eyes, also, as decisions were made to cheat, demean, and dumb down our children. Your day in the spotlight will come, too.

Soon. Real soon, if we are at all lucky.

(Scouts and readers, please continue to send me the names and addresses of American school districts stamped inside ‘lost’ Saxon math books, and the names of the countries, or the other states, where the books have been located. I’m sure that the citizens of the various states will want to know which districts to hold accountable, and which countries are benefiting from the educations that are being denied to our own American children. I thank you in advance.)