Alan Schoonmaker's Opinion For My Next Book

[Phil153]

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ALGEBRA FOR TEN YEAR OLDS (And those who think like them).

The educational establishment is EXTRAORDINARILY resistant to change. For example, lectures became obsolete when the printing press was invented five centuries ago, but they are still the primary instructional method.

Teachers and administrators are EXTREMELY opposed to anything that improves performance or even allows it to be measured. The teachers’ unions were the most vociferous opponents of the proficiency tests, and they absolutely insist that teachers’ compensation should be based on non-performance criteria. In fact, they have fought against nearly every attempt to improve American students’ abysmal performance on tests of math, science, etc.

Textbooks are purchased by bureaucracies, and the decisions have almost nothing to do with how well a book teaches. It is an extremely centralized and politicized process, which is completely different from the way 2+2 has sold books.

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Schoonmaker is a respected 2+2 author so I'll hold off the scathing criticism, but one has to wonder how teacher resistance to performance tests and measurements has anything to do with a book that could improve a class's performance??

Beyond that, I don't buy the establishment stuff. For one, we changed and modernized textbooks often when I was in school. For two, there is a huge private school market that is very interested in student performance.. For three, private tutoring and home schooling is a large and growing market. Overall, the whole math textbook market is pretty large. If a good book came out, it would sell.

The only issues I see are marketing (is 2+2 positioned to do that?) and the fact that Sklansky is an unknown in the wider world. Gambling credentials probably don't count for much in the school textbook world. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]