Chapter Ten - John Saxon's Story read by Jenny Hatch
an unexpected, personal battlefront - “There is no reason for Norman to be so far behind just because Norman is in Oklahoma.” John, February 10, 1980
It was going to be a bumper year of activities for John in 1980. First, there was the skirmish that began in February with the administration of the Norman School District over their general coursework. Second, he began his quest that spring to publish his manuscript to improve the teaching of algebra to middle and high school students.
John thought Norman’s school program was insufficient for preparing students for college. One can only surmise, since he didn’t explain it specifically in his videos, what precipitated this initial attack on the local school administration at this time. It could be that by now he had witnessed the inadequate public school preparation in academics for his junior college students for nine years. For another, he was paying extra attention to his youngest child, Sarah, who was still in a public school. He knew that she needed as much science and mathematics as she could get to be fully ready for college.
John had always made sure that his three oldest children had taken a full load of the available core subjects of English, history, science, and mathematics, plus three years of foreign language in Norman High School. He had missed, however, that they should have been provided higher mathematics coursework such as calculus and that by not having that preparation, they had faced some difficulties in their college courses for medical school. Those three were either still in college or had graduated, but Sarah was a junior in Norman High School at this point.
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It all began with a letter to the editor to The Norman (Okla.) Transcript on Sunday, Feb. 10. He wasn’t just upset about the lack of mathematics classes. He was mad about the whole curriculum. His 546-word blast had been headlined, “Norman schools criticized.”
He started by saying that some parents had given up in disgust with the district’s schools and started their own private school. “This private school was not established as a place to run from blacks, Indians, or Mexicans,” he wrote. “Nor was it established to run from incompetent teachers, because the teachers in the Norman public schools are competent and dedicated. The school was established because the superintendent refuses to lead the schools in a search for excellence. Instead, he leads in a groping for adequacy and points to inadequate funding as the cause of the shortcomings of the public schools.”
John cited English instruction as a good example of poor curriculum planning. “Despite the public outcry for ‘back to basics,’ the administrators have not supervised what has been taught in English classes and as a consequence basics have been badly neglected in many areas. It finally got so bad that last summer the English teachers had to take over and try to repair the damage done by the neglect of the administrators. The English teachers voted to have every high school student take a review of grammar fundamentals this school year regardless of the English course for which they were enrolled. “
He was further frustrated with the lack of foreign languages being offered in the high school. Instead, the district used a special program called “Explo” that took two hours a day to teach students home economics, shop, photography, PE, music and non-credit courses in foreign language during nine-week increments. “It took Pennsylvania only two years to find out “Explo” was a loser,” he wrote in his letter to the editor.
The fact that some parents were paying privately for foreign language instruction for their children also bothered him. “…There are 260 districts in California where every school offers six full years of a foreign language. There is no reason for Norman to be so far behind just because Norman is in Oklahoma…”
Geography was his next point of concern: “As a topper, the lack of curriculum leadership by the administration allows students to graduate from high school without ever having had a formal geography course. Don’t ask any Norman high school senior to name the capital of Paraguay or of Burma or of Bangladesh. Not only do they not know the capitals, most of them have never heard of the countries. Every seventh grader in Mississippi takes one full year of geography. “…Some Oklahomans have been conditioned to being second rate when compared to Pennsylvania and California,” he snapped, “but few have been conditioned to being second rate in comparison to Mississippi.”
His closing paragraph was a call for parents to attend a special meeting that he had arranged at the Oklahoma Electric Co-op on Wednesday, Feb. 13. “Possibly we can find more useful places to invest the schools’ money than in new computers and a 14 percent pay raise for the superintendent,” he said. “It appears that we will have to spell out in detail just what we mean by the phrase ‘back to basics’.”
John added the impact of advertising to his cause when he bought a two-column, two-inch, display advertisement in the Norman newspaper:
Every 7th grade student in
MISSISSIPPI
takes a full year of geography.
Every 7th grade student in
NORMAN
takes a full year of Explo??
Lt. Col. (Ret.) John H. Saxon, Jr.
Over the next couple of weeks, he placed two more advertisements in the newspaper.
124 high schools in
MARYLAND
and 10 high schools in
ALABAMA
offer a full year of calculus.
NORMAN, HUGO AND IDABEL do not.
Why do our schools have to be second best?
Paid for by John Saxon
256 PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN CALIFORNIA
Offer 6 years of Foreign Language
NORMAN, HUGO and IDABEL
do not!
Why do we use Oklahoma
Schools as role models?
Paid for by John Saxon
On Feb. 24, 1980, The Norman (Okla.) Transcript printed a second letter to the editor from John. It seems that no reporter covered that parent meeting on Feb. 13 and there was no news story in the paper about the meeting’s results.
He noted that about 60 individuals attended the meeting, including one school board member. John said that “Jane Ingles’ presence made the absence of the other board members all the more noticeable.” He hoped she would report that those in attendance “were not kooks but were level-headed citizens with legitimate concerns.”
The complaints from parents had been varied but seemed to center on the fact that the schools were not expecting enough from average students. John had said the high school modular system that followed the “open classroom” concept that was popularized in the 1970’s should be discarded. “While it may help the motivated student, it militates against the marginally motivated student. Since openness has never been shown to enhance education, and many believe it hurts education; it was requested during the meeting that consideration be given to building permanent walls in the middle school,” he wrote.
Parents also expressed a concern about the choice of electives in the middle schools through the “Explo” program. When a middle school principal said they would need more funding to make such changes, John wrote, “Many could not see why this was so, for it costs just as much to pay a teacher to teach a meaningless subject as to teach geography, or a language, or introduction to geology, or mythology, or ancient history or anything except Explo.”
John’s penchant to address opposition openly was shown in his last paragraph. He quoted a man, giving his name, who attended the meeting and who said that in four years of high school and four years of college, he had never set foot in a geography class. “Yet he felt that his knowledge of the subject was adequate and that while he had never studied a foreign language, he did not regret it. He volunteered that he had been to Europe twice and had been able to get by just fine by speaking English,” reported John. As one who traveled through Europe on several occasions, John saw this as a very short-sighted perspective about broadening the American experience.
He would learn that this narrow perspective—measuring a larger situation by how one adult chooses to see it according to his own anecdotal experience—was not unusual in the world of public education. His long simmering frustration that had developed from when he was a student and decided there wasn’t much point to studying, through his self-destructive early college years, and now as a junior college teacher with tired and pleading students who just wanted some success, had come to a boil.
The rest of 1980 wouldn’t prove to be a cooling off period for him.
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It is likely the school district appreciated the respite they received when John’s attention had to focus elsewhere, this time when talking with New York City publishers and trying to convince them of the worthiness of his “incremental math” approach in a first year algebra book, and then driving around Oklahoma to get teachers to pilot his book.
Then September came. His attention turned again to the Norman School District. On Sept. 2, he bought a half-page display advertisement in the Norman newspaper, filled it with his views in eight-point font, and called it “Norman Schools Grope for Adequacy.”
“The administrators of the Norman schools have a whipping boy and they are in the process of beating the poor kid to death. Whenever a complaint is made about a shortcoming of the school system, they drag out shortage of funds, give him a few sound licks and then hide behind his bleeding body. Most of the time, they don’t listen to complaints and seem unable to comprehend that most of the complaints made by the patrons have nothing to do with shortage of funds…It seems that the leadership has directed course supervisors to grope for adequacy rather than to strive for excellence.”
He continued, “The changes are few that are necessary to make the Norman schools the equal of any public school system in the country. When general complaints are made about the shortcomings of the system, the administrators are happy because they can respond with generalized promises to do better. But they get very disturbed when specific changes are requested. They pout and say ‘No,’ regardless of how serious the shortcomings are or how evident the need for corrections is…The response is totally defensive with no effort to understand the reality of the shortcomings and no effort to realize that most have nothing to do with available money.”
Then John focused on the mathematics program. He complimented those who had provided math education to his children, as far as it went, but pointed out his three oldest had to stop short of Calculus III at the University of Oklahoma because their calculus preparation in Norman had been limited to one semester. “The finest school systems in the United States offer a full year of calculus, but Norman does not. I wrote a letter to the school administration on Feb. 18, 1980, pointing out this shortcoming. The reply dated Feb. 26 stated that the students were already accelerated and that further acceleration would not be advisable.”
So John reported in this advertisement that he had written letters to the state superintendents of schools in 35 states, asking them how many high schools taught a full year of calculus. “In California, 5,235 students in 107 school districts take a full year of calculus. In sparsely settled Nevada, nine high schools offer a full year of calculus. In Hawaii, 41 schools on the six major islands offer a full year of calculus. Thirty percent of the Arizona high schools offer a full year, as do 64 high schools in South Carolina, 400 in New York, 124 out of 168 in Maryland and 120 out of 145 in Connecticut. But the clincher was the 10 high schools in Alabama that offered a full year of high school calculus. He then asked, “What is it that causes the Norman school administration to refuse to accelerate our most qualified students to the level that they could reach in 10 Alabama high schools?”
Having followed the teaching practices he used on his own children—that of giving examples and analogies—John had reflected great frustration that Norman hadn’t led the way in Oklahoma on the subject of calculus coursework. He wrote, “Northeast High School in Oklahoma City now offers a full year of calculus and has for several years. Can you believe that! Can you believe that our administrators believe that catching up with Oklahoma City is excessive acceleration?”
John would also reveal a picture of parents being ignored by school districts. He had learned that Norman administrators were angered by unauthorized interference from someone whose only qualifications were being a taxpayer and a parent. He said, “The administrators also exhibit the blowfish-armadillo syndrome in which they become flatulent and curl up in the armor of innate superiority and ask, ‘Who the hell are you?’”
But John also fumed about the public’s satisfaction with schools as long as they “are as good as the other schools around here.” He said the school officials do what they think the public wants them to do, so, “We share the blame for not being sufficiently forceful in telling the administration what we want.”
Now was the time, he wrote, to set up action plans: “I propose a program of bringing our mathematics curriculum up the level of 10 Alabama high schools and the one in Oklahoma City. Let us ignore for the present the other major, easily correctible faults and devote our energies and monies to this one shortcoming.”
In closing, he stated,
“Two by three inch ads in The Norman Transcript cost only about $11. I invite people who would like to help to send me checks for this amount. I will add money of my own. We cannot force the administration to correct errors such as this one, but by polite harassment, we can keep the water roiled until it would be more pleasant for them to make the change than to put up with the harassment. I would also appreciate phone calls giving verbal support and listing shortcomings that can be corrected within the strictures imposed by the monies available to the school system.
“I grow weary of listening to newcomers make invidious comparisons of the Norman schools and the schools in their last hometown. I am also weary of watching private schools spring up as people who can afford to vote with their feet do so. There is no reason for us to continually accept a second rate curriculum and let the administrators blame their failures on shortage of funds. This is a crutch that has been used too long and too much. We have fine teachers and capable students. We should no longer tolerate inept guidance of our schools from the top.”
He signed his name, address, and phone number. A stream of letters to the editor
poured in to the newspaper. There were those who agreed with John. There were those who defended the district and the teachers although John had been careful always to praise the teachers. A particularly interesting letter came from a high school senior, George Laguros. He was responding to Frank Wang, who had also written his own letter to the editor explaining how he had taken algebra in the seventh grade in New York and that accelerated classes had benefited him in his college program. The Norman student was probably unaware that he was writing an amazing indictment of his fellow students:
“I see that Mr. Saxon has changed his pet project from geography to calculus. This is all well and good, except for one problem. At this time, students have two chances to take calculus, since the course is only a semester long. If it were a year long, students would have only one chance to take it. Some students who would have taken at least a semester of calculus, wouldn’t take any at all…A full year of calculus wouldn’t fit into most schedules. By the way, Frank Wang, this is not New York. The school system and most students here are not of the same caliber (as N.Y.’s). What can be done back East (teaching algebra in the seventh grade) cannot necessarily be accomplished here. You’ll learn that after a little more exposure to the system.”
John did appear at the following week’s school board meeting to express his ideas and criticisms in person. According to news reports, the board listened to him and took no action on his requests. What he had not realized was the long memory and anger his hometown school district would have when it came to using his textbooks. Decisions about curriculum wouldn’t be about what was possibly good for students. It would be about payback to John Saxon.
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That expression of anger from some district employees was revealed in the fall of 1982. The Norman superintendent had agreed to pilot John’s Algebra I book but because of shipping problems, John had to give free Xerox copies of the first lessons for use until the books arrived. When the 300 books did come, they were locked in the district warehouse by order of the mathematics director. John learned the Xerox copies had been thrown in the trash. He would develop a subsequent attitude about “math advisers” and “curriculum directors” largely based on this experience.
John wrote about this developing perspective in 1983 in a commentary for a Minneapolis newspaper. “I am dismayed at the number of school math supervisors who reject my claims outright and refuse even to consider that a turnaround is possible. In some ways that is understandable. Math teachers who were criticized by parents had to defend themselves, and in doing so they defended the books from which they taught. Also, in large school systems, the math supervisors (who select the textbooks) consider themselves part of the math establishment. They go to math conventions, write papers, serve on committees and do other things that establishment people do.” He concluded, “Let there be no doubt about it. The status quo is supported by powerful interests.”
In the summer of 1985, John offered to give the Norman superintendent enough Saxon books for all the district’s Algebra II students. “I made the offer because the book is not on the state adoption list, the Norman schools are not rich, and Norman is my hometown.” While Supt. Bill Anderson had accepted the offer, the books were refused once again by the district’s math advisers.
In contrast to those whose opposition to him grew into deep-seated animosity and who gave him no latitude, John still expressed a softer belief about education leaders in those early days: “The individuals involved are not people of ill will. In the long run, I believe, they will put the interests of young Americans first, even if that means swallowing their pride and admitting some responsibility for the difficulties we face.”
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As John’s actions are followed through time, it’s as though he puts a situation on a back burner, possibly because his interests get demanded elsewhere, but it becomes clear that he never forgets it. This action would turn out to be a rather normal practice of John’s—setting aside an issue and then swinging back to it out of nowhere, even years later. He would sound as irritated about it the second time around as he did during the initial fracas.
For example, in March 1986, nine months after his second offer to the Norman school administration, John wrote a new letter to the Norman newspaper about the incident. He criticized the math advisers as “not having taught from the book or even talking to those who have.” He said, “They just talk to the professors of math and science education at OU who are inept at best.” He blamed the university’s educators for giving negative reviews of his books when Norman schools were going through their adoption process the previous year.
Continuing, John said,
“This letter is not a sales letter. It is just the opposite and is for your information only. I would like for the Norman schools to stick to the books they have been using. You have denied me the pleasure of seeing my hometown schools lead the way in education. It seems that many people are ashamed of Oklahoma and believe that nothing of value could originate here. I am very familiar with this attitude, for when I was a boy the state song of Georgia contained the line ‘the red clay hills of Georgia are good enough for me.’ As I sang these words with gusto, I realize now that I and we are not entitled to the best, for somehow, we were second class. People who think like that are afraid to be first, because being a leader is a frightening experience if you are sure you don’t belong in front. It took me almost a lifetime to realize that Georgia and Oklahoma have nothing to be ashamed of. Instead they should be proud because they are really better.
“One last thing: Please do not contact teachers in Muskogee, Scottsdale and McAlester. You are responsible for things like approving funds for roof repairs and other items. It would be out of character for you to take a personal interest in curriculum. Just sit back and wait. All things come to those who wait—and there is no danger involved.”
A week later a letter to the editor came from the University of Oklahoma interim chairman of mathematics. Dr. Stan Eliason said John’s criticism that university staff had given negative reviews of his book was incorrect. “The faculty in mathematics education was not asked for and did not make any recommendation concerning textbook adoptions or use in Norman schools.” He also expressed his “complete confidence in the staff’s competence.”
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Fast forward to May 1, 1988, and another letter from John to the Norman newspaper editor expressed concern about the district’s not accepting his offer for free Algebra II textbooks in 1985. He reviewed the past conflict over calculus not being taught a full year, the superintendent accepting his first offer in 1982 for free Algebra I books and the math director’s placing them in a warehouse and refusing to use them, and that second offer that was refused by the district’s math advisers. He urged parents to attend a May 9 board meeting to review the issue.
The following day a letter from a parent was published that fussed about administrators who impacted the education of children. The writer said he was “really frustrated with board members who say, ‘We don’t know anything about math. That’s why we hire a superintendent.’ Therefore, the sole person in charge is the superintendent.” The parent did not think that was appropriate and agreed with John’s charges against the administration.
John’s own negative attitude about board members and superintendents was being
more fully developed during this time as well. In 1990 he wrote an opinion piece for a weekly newspaper in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He ripped into superintendents’ ignorance of academics by saying, “Superintendents work for the school board members and the school board members, as a rule, are even less educated than the administrators. We don’t have a turnaround in education because of personal ignorance. The education system is loaded with lethargy and inertia.”
He said that although he had written to and talked with school board members “all over the country,” he had received no responses—“not one from a school board member”—and that he only heard from “bright-eyed teachers who cared.” He wrote, “School board members are convinced by administrators that their job is setting policy while administrators set education activities.” For that reason, John said, “Board members are used as a buffer between administrators and the public.”
The day after that board meeting, the newspaper reported that “parents showed up in force” as John “took the board to task” for not accepting his offer for free books for grades 10-12. Several parents supported John’s efforts. Five days later, another parent wrote to complain about the superintendent and the board telling parents at the meeting that they shouldn’t be writing letters to the editor because, according to the superintendent, “It makes the public think the board doesn’t know what it’s doing.” The parent said they were told they should contact school officials directly about their concerns. Then she wrote, “This is about the right to freedom of speech.”
Letters to the editor continued to be printed for and against John and the school board.
The board considered the topic again in its June meeting, this time with the superintendent saying they had checked with Arizona as John had suggested and, “Saxon’s statistics don’t add up.” They listed scores and numbers from two Arizona high schools and compared those to Norman students, which showed the Norman students having better scores—but they did not share the demographics among the schools. They also said they had checked with Jaime Escalante, who John had said used his books, and Mr. Escalante stated that he “relies on himself as the teacher, not any one book.” As it would turn out, this was true, except that Mr. Escalante had indeed used John’s books among the numerous materials that he chose to incorporate in his classes.
That meant the statement by district officials had omitted details in order to bolster their own side. Both the assistant superintendent and superintendent stated they believed “a book doesn’t matter; it is the teacher who makes the difference.” The fact that Mickey Yarberry at Del Crest Junior High had published an article saying she had thought the same thing but had learned a book did make all the difference after using John’s Algebra I text was not considered. No decision was made about accepting his textbook offer at that meeting.
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Three years later on Dec. 29, 1991, John bought a full-page advertisement in the Norman newspaper with the title, “Attention Norman Parents: There is a battle in progress and your children are caught in the crossfire.”
This would be the first volley of such advertisements that would run periodically for the next nine months. In the ad, John took on the Norman school administrators by name for their refusal to accept his earlier offers for free books. Letters from parents followed, wanting to know why the district was so determined not to accept his offer. Five months later, in May 1992, John had another full-page ad explaining the “new new” math and how it had descended on Norman schools. In the very same issue, he had another four-column advertisement labeled, “Why are the test scores of Norman schools a secret?” Evidently, John had been trying to obtain the complete demographic report of Norman students and had been denied that information.
Finally, in September 1992, there was a responding full-page ad from the district that said, “Norman Public Schools Principals’ Statement of Support.” Thirty-seven school administrators’ signatures were in the advertisement expressing their loyalty to the district and its decisions
By now, the sides were really lined up on sides in the issue of Norman Public Schools and their mathematics program. A story had even made the The Oklahoma Daily of Oklahoma City with a headline, “OU math chair sides with NPS.” Andy Magid [math chairman] had stated in a letter to The Oklahoma Daily that Norman math teachers and directors “are following math standards set by NCTM [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] and by Oklahoma law.” He explained that NCTM completely redesigned the U.S. math curriculum in the late1980’s… “as a paradigm in setting standards to which other disciplines should aspire.” Further, U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander and President George H. Bush, had addressed a conference of 500 mathematics educators organized by the education secretary, and “certainly gave those of us in attendance the sense that the NCTM Standards are the national standards for math.”
Dr. Magid added, “I can say, having looked at Saxon’s book which my daughter used (in Jerusalem, Israel), that updating the books to be consistent with the national standards would not be terribly difficult task for a qualified textbook writer.”
The fact that John’s books could not easily be made “consistent” with NCTM Standards, which were supposedly designed to be guidelines and not to be codified into law, and that John would prevent any such efforts to change his books, were completely missed in Dr. Magid’s knowledge about the conflict between John and the Norman district. As John was learning, when “outside” sources are sought to defend a position, that defense is usually based on a person’s academia credentials rather than on the knowledge of the issues.
Only three days later, John had one final advertisement in the Norman newspaper on this controversy. The headline read, “Enough is sometimes too much.” He wrote, “I have checked with many friends and to my dismay, while all praise my intentions, most of them believe the disruptive effect of my ads will cause more damage in the long run than they will do good. They have suggested that I cease my attacks on the Norman administrators and I have agreed to follow their advice…I recommend Norman look at Kumon Math as a supplement for low scores…I apologize to parents and teachers who were offended by my ads.” (his emphasis)
The Oklahoma City newspaper announced this unexpected move by John in a headline, “Publisher Gives Up.” He was quoted, “I have decided that in my lifetime I will not be able to help Norman schools.” The newspaper said a list provided by Saxon indicated 173 districts in Oklahoma spent a combined $997,385 on Saxon math books that year. This was despite the absence of state money available for such purchases because he had missed the deadline to get his textbook adopted in 1981 due to shipping delays. For example, it reported nearby Ponca City’s superintendent saying her district had adopted Saxon books for all of its elementary schools in spite of its not being on the approved state list.
A full interview with John was done later that week with The Oklahoma Daily. “You can’t accomplish anything through a frontal attack,” he told the reporter. He said he had only attacked the administrators but they had turned his argument around and made it seem that he was attacking “motherhood and America and this puts you in a no-win situation.”
The news story concluded the controversy was magnified when Prof. Magid openly sided with Norman Public Schools. In reference to Dr. Magid’s letter, John said, “Mathematicians know less than anyone else in the country. They are so far removed from math education that they’re almost on another planet.” Nonetheless, he admitted that some of his friends had convinced him that he was progressing rapidly backwards. “I’m getting negative results where I hoped to get positive results.”
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Four months went by. John came out swinging with a full-page advertisement in The Norman Transcript on Jan. 31, 1993 titled, “The offer was refused.” Inside the advertisement was a boxed section to highlight the calling for a special meeting for those interested in “coming up with a course of action that would be of interest to the school board.” John was back in the Norman School District’s face.
He told of efforts to give books to elementary schools to try and level out the differences of scores between students in the “east” and “west” Norman schools. He told of Monroe Elementary School accepting $3000 worth of materials from him and the administration demanding the school spend another $5,000 on materials from other publishers. This, John said, was a “waste of taxpayer money” since those different materials had not even been unboxed by the teachers.
John wrote, “This conflict is no longer about what is best for Norman students, but has degenerated into a battle of wills between John Saxon and the top two school administrators… I regret that these ads have been necessary, but when I realized that senior administration was putting their dislike for me ahead of the welfare of Norman students, I had no choice. I will not go away. (his emphasis) I will publish the results of the year’s end standardized test scores in math in this paper when they become available. Something must be done to close or significantly narrow the gap between the scores of students in east Norman and west Norman…I can publish the results of their mismanagement in this newspaper.” (his emphasis)
More wall-to-wall writing was published in John’s subsequent ads in May and June. The first one, entitled “Parents Want Outcomes,” attacked the superintendent and assistant superintendent for their management efforts and for bringing the “outcome-based education” programs to the district.
The June ad had the title, “Arrogant Maladministration.” In it, John told about a meeting to take place at Monroe Elementary for parents to hear the administration’s evaluation of the pilot of Saxon elementary books and how neither the superintendent nor assistant superintendent had been in any of the Monroe classrooms or talked with the teachers about the program. He spoke of Math Director Mary Kay King’s 10-minute visit in a second grade class and storming out, saying, “It’s just like Math Their Way!” John then declared in his ad, “It is not!” He told of his own visit on May 21 to the fifth grade heterogeneous class already partway through his sixth grade book.
“I enjoy a good fight, but take no pleasure in fighting with people who are not smart,” (his emphasis) wrote John in his advertisement. He said that if [Supt.] Gray and [Asst. Supt.] O’Brian didn’t like him and didn’t want the Norman schools to use his books, “It seems they could have had enough sense to visit one or two of the classes using Saxon Math. Then they could say they had evaluated the Saxon program and found it to be inferior.” He added that Ms. King could have designed tests so that Saxon students would not have scored better by carefully including questions on arcane topics that were not taught in the Saxon books. John said, “I can only conclude that none [of these officials] are not only not smart, but are also arrogant.”
Adding more fuel to the fire, John wrote, “Ms. O’Brian has called the Norman teachers ‘dumb-butts’ and compares other people’s opinions to a-holes.” For John to be able to write this truthfully, an insider had to be giving him information.
He had learned that Ms. King did indeed create a test to give to the Saxon second and third graders at the Monroe school. The Monroe teachers were notified that she would give the test to evaluate the results of the use of Saxon books. The test was not a standardized one and it had not been used anywhere before. He then printed the two-column “MARY KAY KING’S TEST” within the advertisement. He explained that it was similar to an oral Stanford-Benet test that is used to determine a person’s intelligence quotient (IQ) [rather than measure content knowledge]. In addition, “Two of the questions dealt with calculators in the second grade even though Saxon Math does not emphasize the use of calculators.”
John said only 15 of 30 parents contacted by the teachers had given permission for their children to take the test. He then asked, “Why do the parents have to become totally enraged before the school board will even consider the possibility that things are getting out of hand?”
Again, for him to have this kind of information meant that someone on the inside was feeding it to him. This was turning into a serious and continuing problem for the district’s administration. It would only get worse. In October, John’s full-page advertisement announced, “West’s math scores 35% higher than Central’s.” He explained that meant “more advantaged” students who had used his (free) books had made better scores than children from disadvantaged homes who had not been allowed to use his books.
He went on to say, “Let’s get one thing straight: My criticisms are about the administration, not teachers or students. We really should ask Mr. Gray to move on. He was paid $93,500 by the Topeka schools to get lost and he has worn out his welcome in Norman.”
The ads kept coming. In November, full-page spread with its bold title said, “Let’s up the Ante!”
In this one he agreed to pay the Norman School Foundation a sum of $10,000 in the summer of 1993 if his books failed to produce the desired results. He wrote, “I agree to let a professor of mathematics from OU, to be selected by the head of OU mathematics department, supervise the test. If this professor finds the disparity between Central and West Mid-High has not been reduced by an amount that is statistically significant, I will pay the agreed amount.”
He repeated an offer of $21,000 worth of books to Longfellow and Irving elementary schools, with another $10,000 to the Norman School Foundation if his books failed in those schools. He presumed, evidently, that even if teachers were required to use his books, they would do so fairly and professionally for the benefit of the students.
“The total value of my offer is now $63,500. The only thing that Mr. Gray and Ms. O’Brian would put up on their side of the bet is their egos, which we have come to realize are quite large.” (his emphasis)
John included within this advertisement a letter dated Feb. 15, 1993, from the mathematics chairman of Maine Township High School in Park Ridge, Illinois, the alma mater of Hillary Clinton. It reported their increases in SAT scores and numbers in higher math classes after using Saxon textbooks. John explained, “The Chicago school has an enrollment in grades 9-12 of 2200 students and 75 students had made a perfect score on the AP calculus test.” Then he said, “Norman has over 3000 students. Ask your school board member about the comparative results from Norman.”
In closing, John added that the Chicago school had switched to Saxon books five years ago “because they wanted to find a better way.” Then he asked, “Why are our top administrators so opposed to improvements? Why have they not investigated my claims of success elsewhere? Why do the school board members put up with their refusal to investigate?”
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By March 1994 John hadn’t heard from Norman’s two top administrators, so it was time for another full-page advertisement. He labeled it “$93,500.” He repeated his offer in the previous November advertisement and said he was now willing to raise his “penalty” of $20,000 to $50,000 if his books failed. Add that to the cost of the free books he was offering the schools and his total expenditures would be $93,500.
He wrote, “I believe the students from the less affluent areas of Norman should be given the chance to catch up with their peers from the west side. I am willing to provide the books to give them the chance and to pay a large sum if the effort is not successful.”
Then John gave an explanation of his various math materials: He said they had found that heterogeneous grouping was necessary in kindergarten through third grade and that Saxon math curriculum author Nancy Larson had provided “a wonderful program for those grades that is student-centered, activity-oriented, uses manipulatives extensively, and concentrates on mental math.” He said Saxon books for fifth [54], sixth [65], and seventh [76] grades were “lower-division math books and present lower-division topics in a lower-level manner.”
John had titled his books to indicate, for example, “fifth grade with a review of fourth or 54,” “sixth grade with a review of fifth or 65,” etc., as a reflection of continual review. He had found that about 70 percent of the students could successfully move from Math 76 to Algebra ½, but the middle school series’ author, Stephen Hake, and he were concerned about the other 30 percent, “So we wrote Math 87.” He said the book “presents upper level topics in a lower-level manner.” In his John-style vernacular about younger students, he explained that “marginal 76 students needed another year to transition from the little-boy/girl math to big-boy/girl math.”
He explained his books for fourth grade and above were for “skill levels,” not “grade levels,” and warned about placing all students in one grade level for those years because “some will be bored and others will be pushed off the math wagon onto the slow track and take courses such as basic math and consumer math.” (This placement of students by skill or ability levels—called “tracking”—was considered unacceptable among education leaders and teacher trainers because they thought homogeneous grouping was hurtful to students’ self-esteem. Teachers must learn to “differentiate instruction” for the various learning levels within any classroom.)
The bottom half of his ad provided testimonials from teachers all over the country about Saxon Mathematics.
It was that same year when John began writing about the teachers’ responsibility to voice opinions regarding the books they used, rather than just expecting administrators and board members to speak up. “We are all responsible. I am responsible for providing books whose pedagogy has been tested and proved. As a classroom teacher, you are responsible for seeing that your students learn as much as they can by using books whose pedagogy has been proved. (his emphasis) I encourage teachers and math supervisors to demand that book companies prove that their books produce the results we want. Our students deserve the best.”
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Two years later in October 1996, John died. He never saw his books officially adopted by the Norman Public Schools. That 16-year, battle-hardened scenario started with him as a parent complaining to a school district about their not offering a full year of calculus and his expressing frustration over what he and other parents saw as low academic expectations for Norman students.
The subsequent and clear anger shown by the district’s math coordinator at the time of his initial effort gave credence to a continual fear among many parents who resist complaining to districts. Their stated concern is usually, “If an educator will treat an adult who’s asking questions with hostility, what will happen to my child?”
However, Sarah, as a junior in high school in 1980 when John started his crusade, said she never experienced any comments or actions toward her by teachers or administrators related to her father’s activity.