My dad and mom sent me an article from the Phoenix newspaper that I thought 
might be of interest here. I won't print it verbatim, because of the 
copyright laws, but I'll summarize it.
The article concerned a textbook series being used by Mesa (AZ) Public 
Schools. Since homeschoolers often use the same textbooks, these might be 
books you've seen offered in textbook exchanges at homeschool groups, etc. 
The series is the Addison Wesley math series, particularly the one called 
"Quest 2000" (for the K-6 batch), and the Junior High/High School series 
called "Secondary Math: An Integrated Approach: Focus on (Algebra, Geometry, 
etc)".
The author/mother picked up the algebra version of this latter textbook, 
brought home by her middle school aged daughter, and looked thru it 
carefully. In the article, she pointed out how so much of this textbook 
really had nothing to do with algebra. She gave several examples, but the one 
that she cited that got my attention was one about a chili-cook off and "how 
could a group raise funds during this chili-cook off?" (I agreed: where was 
the algebra in that one?) The book was full of this kind of stuff.
Later in the article, she mentioned how the elementary versions of this 
series was designed to teach geography and math together, but that the series 
was not doing either one justice.
Her reaction was to start with 9 school staff members, questioning the choice 
of this textbook. The reaction was, well why are you worried, your daughter 
is an A student. She then went to 3 board members, who proceeded (in a public 
meeting) to announce her daughter's 6th grade math achievement test scores to 
everyone and offering that as proof that the series *must* work. She went to 
the district office and had a similar experience to that of the teachers at 
her daughters' school. "Why worry?"
The article ended saying that 50% of Mesa's school board is up for 
election.
I came away thinking. My kids are using Addison Wesley Math in school. 
However, they aren't using the 2000 series - they are using a different one. 
It's clearly mostly math (so far). So I'm relieved for my kids. But I decided 
to post this so that if any of you are looking for Math books for your child, 
and come across these in a thrift store, garage sale, Homeschool Group Book 
Sale/Trade, you might want to really look thru them and make sure what you're 
getting. Though Math is a skill that does integrate with other things, it 
usually *does* need to be taught as a separate subject and then integrated 
into other subject matter. And from this lady's article, I sure got the idea 
that the Addison Wesley 2000/Integrated series does NOT do a good job with 
the integration.
                                 -donna
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