Thanks. Since someone else asked the same question today, I thought I'd add what we think we'll do. American Government: The Essentials also has quite a few positive reviews online and looks good to me. There are several syllabi online including a high school one from Warwick School District with a lot of detail and supplemental readings (since it's a full-year high school AP course, those might be dropped or pruned) and several introductory college ones. I think the American Government course is just national government, although to be realistic, that may be all that can be covered in a semester). FYI, the authors have a state and local text too. Has anyone used another syllabus or have experience with a few other readings to go along with the text?

You may want to consider Writing With a Thesis by Skwire and Skwire. A semester seems about right with appropriate writing assignments along the way. My DS said "it made sense" and helped him focus his writing more, on similar issues to yours, and I noticed a clear improvement. I'm sure there are other approaches, but that helped us.

I still think that the pool of possibilities to consider is larger than the approx. dozen schools on your elite list (I realize those were just examples). I have no idea what the options are like in NZ, but if NZ lifestyle is important, I'd certainly look closely there and make sure it doesn't make sense before writing them off. I also think there are some smaller schools that might work -- the professors may have mostly gotten their doctorates at elite schools, and they might have more time and focus on teaching rather than research. You don't want a situation with two math profs, and I think it would be a big plus to be near a larger elite to take advantage of a class or so there, or to take a year and go somewhere else. Besides keeping the NZ lifestyle or other issues in mind, it might be less expensive for their family. We have lots of math majors in the family, and I've seen different routes work and not work; I think the particulars matter a lot. Sure, I agree the mathematical foundations haven't changed that much recently. But I think the culture of teaching is different at some schools vs. others, and that can change over time; I think some professors would be generous with helping a bright, energetic student like Ruth's, while some may view it as a burden. I'm not sure, but it may be that some of the "non-elite" state flagship schools with honors colleges may be worth looking into as well. While I don't have experience dealing with pure math graduates from those, I've been impressed with the education that some folks have received in quantitative areas. In any case, this is probably a good opportunity to practice contacting the prof or graduate student, which will be a good skill regardless.

While the course titles and core content may be the same, the level of depth isn't always: think AoPS vs a typical class at lower levels, and the same thing can happen at the university level. Mike's list of programs may do this more consistently over the generations, but there are other places where you can delve into math at a much deeper level than the basic programs. You should definitely not just expect it; you need to look into it first. I agree with the earlier posts that many of the students are likely not nearly at your son's level of interest or ability, but I think that a lot of the math profs are likely to have interests similar to your DS's. That's why they became math professors. The key is whether they'll engage with your son. While some may be aloof and not want to meet students, others will, especially if it's to discuss higher level, challenging problems. Ruth, it might still be possible for your son to make it work in NZ, with possibly a year or two somewhere else. But I agree with other posts that it's not realistic to expect that a program will be appropriate just because it's at a university.

I wouldn't be concerned about a 14 year old not knowing what they want to do yet, and I think it's even less likely with someone with Asperger's/ASD. I'd let him have some time to explore his interests in more depth and be ready for big changes each year. Regentrude, a DS of mine was set on a professional sports career at 14-15, had been since age 7, and put in incredible hours and effort. As you, I always talked about the Plan B "in case of injury," and that did happen, unfortunately. Plan B worked out fine for him. As usual, you are very wise IMO to take his plan seriously and keep the dialog open. Best wishes.

I'm not sure. Your DS may be that bright. I'd guess that the level of the class is too low for him -- not the course, per se, but the level of problems and challenge that they're doing. Your DS should probably be taking classes at a challenging university. On the other hand, it is two classes in, so things might change. As you probably know, math classes by the same name can be tremendously different at one university vs. another. And, yes, he probably can learn the linear algebra material on his own. I'm not sure how to find the right university, but you might want to look at how their students do on the Putnam exams (at least in the US). ETA: I would guess that the student body is at that much of a lower level than your DS. The difference in a 15 year old and 18-20 year old doesn't really mean much in math, except that if they're taking the same class, the 15 year old is probably a much better mathematician. It's not at all like literature or some other subjects where life experiences bring maturity. As far as comparing with IMO participants, you may want to look at what universities past participants are attending or have attended; those might be some that you'd both want to consider in your pool of schools.

We used Jacobs but I'd probably use Foerster or Dolciani/Brown if we were to do it again since the problems seem more real world.

I'd use the 3rd edition, which is what Harold Jacobs recommended even years after writing the third ed, but it probably doesn't matter much. I know a lot of people here like the 2nd. With the 3rd, you can use it either as a discovery approach or not. My DS doesn't like a discovery approach; we used it as a non-discovery approach and he really liked Jacobs 3rd ed but probably would have liked the second ed too; we never tried the 2nd ed.

I'd certainly go with the Jacobs Geometry too. We used it, and it worked great for us; I was very busy when my DS did geometry, and he was basically able to do the course with just the book, which is a big plug for the clarity of the book. I would not, however, use the algebra review in the book. It's just a bunch of routine calculations, one topic per chapter, which I consider a terrible review. Fortunately, there are many options for algebra review at that point. You could also continue with algebra, slowly, at the same time. Jacobs Geometry can probably be covered in well under a year if done full time, so if you add in some algebra in may take the full year; even if it were to take a little over a year, you'd still be on track and not need to re-learn the algebra. If you decide to move away from Saxon, you could consider the algebra 2 books by Foerster or Brown & Dolciani which are about the same level of difficulty as Saxon but IMO more "fun" and with better problems.

I really like the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Concise Version (second edition is good and far less expensive than latest edition) and you can get the Instructor's Guide too if you'd like.

Our experience with the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Concise Version (2nd edition) has been fabulous. We started out the year with my researching each piece of literature and finding brief summary materials (for the ancient Greek literature, it was easy for me, but much tougher for me for the non-Western lit). I found that the literature choices were almost all just what I'd ending up selecting,and the brief introductions were perfect for us -- enough to provide concise background, usually sufficient, yet short enough that they allowed more time for reading the literature. Although I'm not qualified to know if all the non-Western selections were the best, where I did know they matched what I was looking for and with the "right" amount of material for us. Since we can't read all of each work, some works were abridged, and we sometimes use the abridged version, which seems like just the right amount of material. I wish we would have started with it at the beginning of the year, but we were also adjusting from my DS coming back from public school after 8th grade. I'm still waiting for that "Dad, this is why I wanted to come back home for school" :-) , but his actions speak volumes. I'll need to look over the Bedford Anthologies, but we have greatly enjoyed Vandiver's lectures; I think the Odyssey, Aeneid, Iliad, and most of hers from TGC "Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition" are especially good.

If your DS hasn't taken AP statistics, I would strongly recommend that. It's very practical and used in lots of areas. Starnes, Yates, and Moore Practice of Statistics is an excellent text (next to last version is still good and cheaper), and he could probably learn it from the book. Since it's somewhat separate, he could also take another math course at the same time. There are a lot of options after AP Calculus BC: Linear algebra. The Gilbert Strang text is excellent as well as practical and a corresponding MIT OCW class is available. This could also be done on his own. Discrete math could be covered. I'm not sure what he's had in that area, if anything, so it's hard to say. Calc 3 is more than what's covered in AP Calculus BC, so unless he's covered more than that, perhaps a different calc 3 course would be appropriate. He may want to have a business-focused class if that's really his interest so he can see the applications at the same time. A second statistics class if he's already had one. He may want to take a business statistics class IF he's sure he's interested in business, but make sure it doesn't completely start from the beginning -- maybe something that says "a second course in statistics." If not, he could get a book on "regression analysis"; the book by Neter and Wasserman, Applied Linear Statistical Models, has a lot of business problems but is relevant to any field and is very clear, solid, and practical. Differential equations, but he may want to make sure it has a broad range of applications since those classes can sometimes be very focused for physical science and engineering. If he's interested in theoretical math, classes with the title of "advanced calculus" or "mathematical analysis" would come after AP Calculus BC. A very elegant book is by Spivak on calculus: it starts from the beginning and proves the results of calculus, which a minimal AP calc class does not do at all. There are a whole host of other college math classes that could be taken after calculus, depending upon interest. For example, if he already took AP statistics, though it is definitely not required for the course, he could take probability; a good text is Sheldon Ross's A First Course in Probability.

IMO you have the two of the best texts around for this level, and either will probably work great. As mentioned above, using one and then using the other for alternative explanations or problems is probably the best. Both texts are strong on the math and seem to develop good of problem-solving skills. They're probably both slightly above the average level of US math texts (although US texts tend to be pretty low). I have a similar edition of Brown and Dolciani from the mid-1990s, and it's a modern text in a good sense of the word; I can't compare clarity of presentation across the various Dolciani editions, as I haven't seen them all myself and didn't learn using them, but the 1990s Dolciani/Brown texts look good to me. On the other hand, if you need more than the select answers in the back of the Dolciani/Brown book, and the Teacher's Edition is too expensive, then perhaps Foerster's the way to go. It's solid and lots of people have had great experiences with it.

I have both volumes of Strayer's Brief Global History With Sources and it is clearly written. I had written the draft course plan with Noble, et al's Western Civilization and Strayer for non-European and then switched to Duiker and Spielvogel (plus the Daileader lectures) but still reading the Strayer introductory section on using primary sources. Either way has merit. When I read some sections side by side, I liked Duiker and Spielvogel a little better than Strayer for Medieval (although it's possible I would have come to a different conclusion with different sections), but I wasn't impressed with Duiker and Spielvogel for the 20th Century and doubt I'd use it for 11th grade, and maybe we'll go with Strayer + a Euro text for modern. If DS does decide on an AP World History or AP European History in 11th, that would greatly affect our textbook choice. In any case, we'll probably use the Strayer big picture brief essays at the beginning of each section, which are a really nice feature either as an introduction or review. We'll be pretty heavy on literature of the time since we're planning on reading all of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Concise Version, over that time period plus a few other things, so I don't want to go overboard on the history. But we need more primary sources; a couple of good secondary sources would also work. (My DS is really into history right now, and I've left a few books around which he's been reading on his own, so that's one approach.) I'm more than open to all sorts of suggestions!

Swimmermom3's description is great. I described several other texts last month at: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/612681-spine-for-world-history-medieval-renaissance-period/ in case you're interested. We're focused on middle ages-early modern for next year, but all or most of the texts described go to the present, more or less.

With the caveat that most of my familiarity with Lial's books is on Precalculus, but IMO it's very calculation focused and doesn't do a good job with teaching problem solving skills and how to use math. For algebra 1 review, calculation review seems sufficient, but I would want an approach that teaches problem-solving and using math for algebra 2 -- after all, for calculation, a computer can do a lot in the real world. For algebra 1 review, besides Lial, I think Khan Academy does a nice job and allows you to focus on what's missing (Aleks probably would work well too). I don't think DC's algebra 1 has to be perfect as some of algebra 2 will review many of those concepts, especially at the beginning of algebra 2; as long as you have the algebra 1 basics down and have some time to fill in some gaps when you hit them in algebra 2, I think you'll be fine. To add some others to consider for algebra 2, you might want to look at Dolciani's books and Foerster's, another excellent option. Prentice-Hall also has some fairly basic algebra 2 books, very affordable used. Edited to fix typo.

Prioritizing is so difficult, especially with a senior where it's really late. This is my very personal feeling on this off the top of my head. Spiritual and emotional development is most important, with physical development next. Monetary survival comes next, and I'd put personal finance there. Then comes being an "educated person," something that every high school graduate should have, and I'd put basic economics there. Unless there's some individual personal situation, I'd place it before psychology, well above accounting (unless it's a prerequisite for some monetary survival). That said, I certainly don't think that a full AP economics course is at all necessary. I think a basic one-semester course would do, maybe even a little less. I'm not familiar with the Crash Course economics videos that Lori D. mentioned, but they've gotten some good reviews by others too on the WTM boards and maybe that would do. IMO, the basic goal is to be able to know enough to vote intelligently, understand the news, and be aware that many things discussed in the political realm can be systematically analyzed -- and sometimes there is a clearly efficient approach for government, business, and individuals to take. Just my 2c. Good luck with whatever you decide.

I think it's important for all students. I'll quote from something I wrote earlier on a different thread: my perspective on high school economics is that it's critical that my DS has a basic, functioning understanding of economics before graduating – not necessarily at the AP econ level, but enough to be an informed voter. Economic policies, whether labeled as economic policies or not, have a huge effect on our society: our standard of living, life expectancy, opportunities, crime rates, and national security. At least in the US, many policies – of both major parties, and others – don't even pass the laugh test economically. Often what has been known to work for decades or centuries just doesn't get done right. Politicians routinely spout off proposals that make absolutely no sense in even a rudimentary economic sense. Many policies don't have clear evidence to support a particular position, but there are a lot that do, at national and local levels. A society can either strive for a policy objective efficiently or inefficiently (and, if inefficiently, there may be many other things that can't be accomplished). My goal, first and foremost, with this one-semester class, is to provide the background and tools for my DC to evaluate relatively simple economic policies discussed in the public arena.

I need to look at the Crash Course videos. Thanks! Thank you so much! Lots of great stuff! One thing I like about using the "complete" McConnell Economics book even for a one-semester class is that a lot of relevant issues are covered in the book, like immigration, even though they're beyond what's probably reasonable to cover in one semester -- so it's right there to read if DS is interested. (The short McConnell course, Essentials of Economics, doesn't cover immigration but appears to cover enough so the reader could understand such an analysis after the course.) While there isn't a chapter entitled "business development packages" in the "complete" McConnell, there are some chapters devoted to various types of business development. From what I've read, the book seems pretty balanced consistently and focused on explaining economic analysis principles rather than pushing a political agenda explicitly or implicitly.

I think I've come to some of the same conclusions as you recommended, and it really helps to hear it from a BTDT parent!! I've started reading your second post, which has more great info (thanks!). I spoke with my DS, and he's on board with the plan of "basic econ" for sure, to help understand the news and political discussion/voting and, if he's interested, to follow up with more details to cover the remaining topics for AP micro and/or macroeconomics -- that's completely his decision depending upon his interests. Updated draft course plan. As I've been listening to lectures and looking on and beyond the WTM archives, I've modified the plan a bit. While I like some aspects of the Timothy Taylor lectures (3rd ed.), I'm not crazy about it as being the whole course. I think it would be hard for a first-time economics student to follow some of the audio lectures without a book showing the graphs. Although I haven't come to the reported bad language, the speaker's grammar mistakes are really annoying too, to me at least, and I'm not crazy about the bad example for my DS. IMO it's just not one of their best courses either as a stand-alone class. (For example, the short version of McConnell, et al, Essentials of Economics, is the best I've found for that if you want just one thing.) Of course, YMMV, and I'd be interested in the views of others here. Since I've been listening to the lectures, and our library has them, I'll use some of them. Here's some of what I've found listening to the lectures: Lectures 1-2: I really like the introduction to economics lectures and how the speaker shows how economics is relevant. We'll start off our course with these two. Lecture 3: We won't use this one. I think it's hard to follow this material in lecture format, and I don't think even video would completely fix that for a first-time student. Also, I think the opening example on salaries of pro athletes vs. nurses and high school biology teachers is a poor one as it makes value judgments and misses some economic points (e.g., a local professional sports team is basically a monopoly, and the opportunity to explain the difference between goals and economic experience is missed at this first instance in the course) – although we could use it to show the issues in the presentation; his next example on the classic diamond-water case doesn't have those issues as far as I know. Finally, he also makes several grammar errors (e.g., third error, where it started getting annoying, on Track 5 at ~1:43, I think another on Track 6 ~0:25, another on Track 6 ~2:04). Lecture 3 would probably best used after some additional background, such as McConnell's Chapter 1. After lecture 2, we'll probably go to the McConnell book for awhile. Lecture 4: This material is easily conveyed by lecture, and he does a great job showing the abundant relevance to everyday political discussion -- e.g., he does a nice job showing the unintended negative consequences of some "nice sounding" policies. We'll use it! Lecture 5: Another one where the material is somewhat hard to convey by lecture without referring to a book. Another grammar error. (Lecture 6, track 9 ~1:00-1:05 has another grammar error; at least the Teaching Company fixed the grammar error in the transcript here and maybe elsewhere.) We'll probably skip this lecture too and go for the book just use the McConnell book the rest of the way unless DS wants to continue with the lectures more. (The open-source Tim Taylor book might be fine, but since I've now got the McConnell book, it looks very good to me, and it's got a good track record, we'll probably go with it.) With the basics of the book, a few lectures, and two simple economic analyses, some weekly readings from The Economist magazine, I think we'll have managed the primary goal of the course. I will probably add Bernstein's Birth of Plenty for a simple economics history with relevance to today and some readings from Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times, and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers since we're doing a WTM-like Great Books approach to literature to accompany our parallel world history (I got the idea from a syllabus of a high school AP econ course and some things I did in high school). I'd love any comments on the draft plan or additional ideas!

FYI, my goal for this class, and my perspective on high school economics, is that I feel it's critical that my DS has a basic, functioning understanding of economics before graduating – not necessarily at the AP econ level, but enough to be an informed voter. Economic policies, whether labeled as economic policies or not, have a huge effect on our society: our standard of living, life expectancy, opportunities, crime rates, and national security. At least in the US, many policies – of both major parties, and others – don't even pass the laugh test economically. Often what has been known to work for decades or centuries just doesn't get done right. Politicians routinely spout off proposals that make absolutely no sense in even a rudimentary economic sense. Many policies don't have clear evidence to support a particular position, but there are a lot that do, at national and local levels. A society can either strive for a policy objective efficiently or inefficiently (and, if inefficiently, there may be many other things that can't be accomplished). My goal, first and foremost, with this one-semester class, is to provide the background and tools for my DC to evaluate relatively simple economic policies discussed in the public arena.

As I mentioned in the previous post, by lecture 3 it seems to me that it might be hard to understand the material in an efficient manner without a text. Others who've actually used the lectures may have a different perspective. I didn't see any directly "recommended text" in the guidebook, but the Supplemental Reading listed with lecture 1 is two textbooks: Gregory Mankiw, Principles of Economics; and McConnell, et al, Economics.

Ah, it's planning time. FYI, there's another thread is this very topic going on this week you may want to check out: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/615526-recommended-one-semester-economics-course/

As I've been listening to the Timothy Taylor GC, the first two lectures are great, and start at a basic level, but then the third lecture seems to get to point where you need some written materials really to understand what's going on. I think we'll use the Timothy Taylor lectures in combination with the Economics book by McConnell, Blue, and Flynn, selecting out the chapters covered in their short book Essentials of Economics (using the complete book, however, will allow DS to explore additional topics on his own, which he might; it would also allow for an easier expansion into AP microeconomics and/or AP macroeconomics if he decides he wants to do that). There's a table a few pages in which shows which chapters are included in Essentials of Economics, which seems like a good selection. I think we'll also read The Birth of Plenty: How Prosperity in the Modern World Was Created for some economic history; it's the best book I could find on economic history at the high school level. It should also help with understanding the important role of economics on world history and perhaps the likely futures of countries. I've also got some issues with some assumptions that Timothy Taylor makes in the third lecture (track 2 of the audio), but it's fairly minor and will make for something for us to discuss, and he's still pretty mainstream. After lecture 2, we'll start on the McConnell book anyhow. Right now, I'm more set on the McConnell book than The Great Courses lectures, but we'll go with the above unless I find anything better. Finally, I was thinking that we'll use the accompanying Study Guide for the McConnell book. It would also be nice to have a little economic analysis of a current issue...something that perhaps could be done in about two days? Any thoughts on a little analysis? Any other great materials we should consider using?

I'd continue with the class for the reasons you listed and I clipped above. History, lit, writing papers, giving speeches, and the personal interactions in class are all really important. You said the math is going well. Even for science, all those things are at least as important as science classes in high school. And he loves the class.