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The textbook publishing industry has always seemed to be a bit of a scam. After all, how much have English or math actually progressed in the past 100 years which have required complete the textbooks to be rewritten every three years or so? Sure, some of the problems with Johnny having 6 phonograph records in one pile and 8 in another pile might need to be updated every decade, but how has 6+8 changed? It seems like we have taken a system with hundreds of years of experience in how children learn and thrown it out so some publishing companies can make money writing new elementary and high school text books with less efficient methods.

As for me, I don't remember whether I learned by phonics or the look-say method. The school taught phonics-phonics-phonics, but I could read before first grade. Math had way too many of the new math "set theory" topics, but I do remember lots of addition and multiplication drills.

“The textbook publishing industry has always seemed to be a bit of a scam. After all, how much have English or math actually progressed in the past 100 years which have required complete the textbooks to be rewritten every three years or so?”

Same here, I’ve wondered the same. You can take what you said at least through Calculus. If you ever get a chance, get a look at some hardcover Saxon Math books. They’re only about 10 or 15 years old, but they look like they’re out of a time warp. One author (sometimes two), all black and white, no pictures of Nelson Mendela (as I saw in a public school math book), no calculators (until real late in the sequence). Needless to say, the books are AWESOME and got my kids YEARS AHEAD of their age level.

Unfortunately the hard-cover books are no longer published (or at least the home school editions), so you have to get them second hand...and I suspect even that might start getting tough, because, if I know the NEA, which I do, they’re likely buying up as many as they can get - just to have book burning parties with them. They’re that dangerous (to them).