[Rob Channell]

Ugh! I was helping my 11 year old with her math yesterday.

The question was to write 5*5 as an exponent (no problem) and then write the "value of the power", a phrase that wasn't used elsewhere in the book. So do they want the value of the "exponent" (2) or the value of the "expression" (25)?

The book seemed rather thin on classical math and I couldn't find any 3 digit x 3 digit multiplication (stuff I was doing in the 4th grade). There is not much repitition. They do a couple of simple problems and move on to the next math for non-math topic. Several standard math terms are changed to other names and the book seems more geared towards getting a child to pick A,B,C or D than to solve a math problem. Too much test preparation and not enough learning how to solve problems.

Then I noticed the book was the "Alabama Edition" of the math book. What? We can't get our teachers to teach our kids from a regular math book so we have to dumb it down?

Then I find out that our SAT tests that all our grade school children take are an "Alabama Edition" as well. No doubt they are easier to give us higher scores and thus try to stay ahead of Mississippi.......or whatever other state is 50th nowdays. Maybe it's us.

I'm just disgusted right now. Dang watered down crap. And this is a fairly large school that has some of the best ratings in our area. I guess we're just destined to be "Special."