A P.S. teacher told me today

[jelbe5]

Yikes! Don't mean to hijack but I just looked up my school district which is a suburb of Chicago. Nothing higher than a 4 out of 10 and many, including the high school, are a 2. So thankful I homeschool!

[regentrude]

I was poking around my son's college website yesterday, and came across a Calculus teacher's site( not my son's prof, though).  He wrote that he will cover chapters 1 to 6 in the text. The book has 12 chapters( and the last 6 are not for Calculus 2). The book costs over one hundred dollars, and they're skipping half of it?

 

What book, and what is their calculus sequence?

We use Stewart for example; the text covers calc 1 in chapters 1-6, calc2 in chapters 7-14, and calc 3 in 15-22 or thereabouts. So one semester would be covered in about 6 chapters. This is rather typical for comparable math texts.

The students might use the same text for the entire sequence and get the whole book, or they might choose to purchase a single volume edition containing only one semester's worth of material, or a book containingthe first two semesters combined. Again, faily typical. Same for intro sciences.

[Dana]

I was poking around my son's college website yesterday, and came across a Calculus teacher's site( not my son's prof, though). He wrote that he will cover chapters 1 to 6 in the text. The book has 12 chapters( and the last 6 are not for Calculus 2). The book costs over one hundred dollars, and they're skipping half of it?

Typically, a calc text will be used for two or three semesters. We have one text that's used for calc 1, 2, and 3. Business calc is different; that is only for one course and the number of chapters will be less than the full text.

 

Text prices are absurd and there are a number of issues with how publishers do things, but so much of that is at the publisher level rather than at the college or individual instructor.

[kiana]

I was poking around my son's college website yesterday, and came across a Calculus teacher's site( not my son's prof, though).  He wrote that he will cover chapters 1 to 6 in the text. The book has 12 chapters( and the last 6 are not for Calculus 2). The book costs over one hundred dollars, and they're skipping half of it?

 

I can't actually think of any commonly used calc textbooks where a standard semester's work is more than about 5-6 chapters. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just not aware of any.

 

[WTMCassandra]

Sign me up for the legalist camp!

 

If we skip a chapter, we have to have a darned good reason for it.  One example is that our Spielvogel 1 text overlaps the Spielvogel 2 text by three chapters. I chose to skip those one year so that we will catch them the next.  (Since this is a college text, we are taking it at half speed in high school.  Spielvogel 1 lasted us two years, and we are about to switch to Spielvogel 2 for years 3 and 4.)

 

My daughter is using a college geometry text, and in the front it says that beginning courses only use Ch. 1-7, although it has 10. So I'm keeping that in mind but I'd like her to get through the whole thing if possible.

[Lanny]

Legalistic? I don't know about that...   The classroom environment probably makes it impossible, for the majority of public (or private) school teachers, to teach the entire textbook. In an email to the Principal of the TTUISD Middle School recently, I wrote something like: "I don't see how in a Texas Public School the students could possibly do all of the work my DD is doing". Her reply to that was, "They can't". They may be using the same textbooks my DD is using, but there just isn't time, in 2 semesters, for classroom students to cover all of that material.

[shawthorne44]

College textbooks can make sense to only do part of it.  I remember my Physics textbook was designed for the first three semesters for Physics majors. Of course, the professors for the second and third classes preferred their own books (sigh) 

But, high school subjects are meant to be taught in a year.  

 

[Parrothead]

I can tie that one....

 

I had our teacher evaluator come a couple of weeks ago to evaluate dd's work last year and give us the recommendation we needed to proceed into 5th grade. When she walked in, she already had the recommendation letter printed and signed, and she put it face down on our table. I didn't say anything, and we proceeded to review dd's work.

 

After the review, I asked her if there were any holes we had to fill. She stated we were fine, and that she was impressed at the amount and quality of the work we had finished. I then asked about writing (who doesn't) as we really didn't have any formal writing curriculum last year. She looked me straight in the eye and told me...."Saddlemomma, your dd writes better than most of the 5th graders I see coming into my class. Look, she's already using quotes and putting expression into her writing. Most of the kids I see can't do that coming into 5th. Stop worrying."

 

Then I told her that when I first started homeschooling, the goal was to just get dd through elementary school and then put her into PS for HS. This teacher, again, looked me square in the eye and said...."Don't ever put her into public school! Keep doing what you're doing." She said that most teachers don't see the success stories of homeschooling; they mostly see the failures (she was specifically talking about our area in northern Maine). That's why PS teachers here are not proponents of homeschooling. However, she feels dd is getting a much better eduction through homeschooling.

 

After she left, I picked up the letter and read it. Within it she stated..."I have found her work to be done in an above average manner. DD would appear to be very adequately prepared for fifth grade."

 

We have had this teacher evaluate us since dd stared Kindergarten. So she's very familiar with our style and methods. However, she indicated that things have gotten so ridiculous with the ps system, that she is seriously contemplating retiring (she's been a teacher for over 30 years). Thankfully, she did tell me that if she retires, she will retain her certification and will be able to continue evaluating dd's work for us. Thank goodness!

 

I am more determined than ever to continue with homeschooling through HS!

Well, you single-handedly reinforced my decision to not send dd to the local high school.