Saxon Math: Differences Between the Editions

This article was originally posted in the Classical Conversations – Official Facebook group on July 23, 2015. It has been slightly revised since it was originally published.

Over the past few days, I have seen a LOT of discussion about Saxon Math books. After a lot of personal research, I discovered that there are basically three distinct versions of Saxon Math textbooks. 

 ORIGINAL TEXTBOOKS

First, there are the original textbooks that were published by Saxon Publishing. John Saxon wrote most of the upper level math books by himself. There were a few books that John Saxon did have a co-author help him finish some of the advanced upper level math books.  He sought others or co-authored the lower level textbooks to complete the Saxon Math series. Saxon Publishing was established in 1981 and remained independent until 2004. The books in the original Saxon Math Series are most commonly hardback textbooks, with the K-3 teacher editions being spiral bound. The books in this series are the ones that most homeschoolers are familiar with.

To fully understand John Saxon’s incremental development approach in his math books, I highly recommend purchasing two books: Using John Saxon’s Math Books by Art Reed and John Saxon’s Story: A genius of common sense in math education by Nakonia (Niki) Hayes. Here is an excerpt from Ms. Hayes book (http://saxonmathwarrior.com/Saxon-booklet.pdf).

 John Saxon died in 1996. Saxon Publishing was sold to Reed Elsevier, the parent company of Harcourt Achieve in 2004. Saxon Publishing was sold by Saxon's children. "Over the years we have been approached by many companies interested in acquiring Saxon.  I am pleased to say we believe Harcourt has the experience, resources and the commitment to further our father's vision and to continue the success of the company he founded," said John H. Saxon III on behalf of the Saxon Family (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harcourt-achieve-announces-acquisition-of-saxon-publishers-inc-74295532.html, this link no longer works – I have requested that the article be made available again)." The CEO, Frank Wang, the protege to John Saxon co-authored two of the upper level math books. Wang remained on staff on until 2003, just before Saxon Publishing was sold to Reed Elsevier/Harcourt Achieve.

HOMESCHOOL EDITIONS

Second, there are the homeschool editions that are most commonly paperback. These were published after Saxon Publishing was bought by Harcourt Achieve in 2004. Much of the content in these textbooks are notably different than the original books. Many of the books in this series were rewritten and completely restructured. These books maybe significantly different, but still have some comparable similarities to the original textbooks. One notable difference that I have seen first hand is the addition of mental math. It is important to note that John Saxon did NOT include additional mental math exercises in his original books. These are essentially a filler in the books to increase the number of pages. Some of the textbooks that fall into this category will be third or fourth editions, some paperback and some hardback. Here is an article with more information on Harcourt Achieve and Saxon (http://archive.lewrockwell.com/taylor/taylor75.html).

NEWEST EDITIONS

Harcourt was acquired by Houghton Mifflin in 2007.  These newer editions are published by Houghton Mifflin. They have been completely rewritten, restructured, and stripped of the "incremental approach" that John Saxon was most noted for. To meet the demands of the common core math standards, the majority of these textbooks are filled with "filler" math and unnecessary exercises. The lower level books that fall into this category will have Intermediate, Course 1, Course 2, etc. on the front cover. These textbooks are not true to the Saxon name. Truthfully, these textbooks don't deserve to be called Saxon Math. Here is an article on the newest Algebra 1 edition vs a true Saxon Algebra 1 (http://drshormann.com/2012/02/08/differences-in-3rd-and-4th-edition-saxon-algebra-1/).

I have included pictures of the ORIGINAL version textbooks. If you are considering purchasing Saxon textbooks and want the true Saxon Incremental Approach, the books you buy NEED to look like these.   

Finally, I will have uploaded the ORIGINAL placement tests and Scope & Sequence to the Saxon Math for Homeschool Facebook group It took MANY hours searching to locate these. Thankfully, the websites that I found had actually uploaded them to their website and not just linked them. These placement tests and scope & sequence's can NOT be found on the Houghton Mifflin website. These are rare, so DOWNLOAD them if you want to access it later.