When a school system selects a textbook for their students to use in math, they have no idea if that particular book has a positive or negative record of success from previous classes. Most of the time schools are just guessing which book is the best one to use. There is no current database that shows which books are performing better than others in the classroom.
Should textbooks be cheaper? The price alone means much-outdated material in classrooms.
Textbooks are not consistent and far too expensive.
Maybe we should have some way of knowing which books work, and which ones don’t. Independent research has shown that the textbook, “California Math,” consistently produced the best test scores of its students. This book is no longer sold. Teachers need a consistent way to gauge the effectiveness of a textbook before they make the decision to buy it.
Also, education reformers, take note: Polikoff said the measurable impacts of adopting this textbook on student test scores were as significant as — if not more significant than — the impacts of other commonly-touted-but-controversial policy changes, such as using teacher evaluations in layoff decisions or expanding school choice.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Key takeaways
- The research into textbooks is lacking, and teachers rarely have the choice of what they teach.
- When they finally tried to compile information, they realized some textbooks assisted scores while others did not.
- The high cost of textbooks are often a block in getting the ‘best’ ones for your learners.
Take the dyscalculia test
Is your child struggling in school?
Get your free personalized learning roadmap
You describe what you see at home. We turn it into a plan you start this week.
- Answer 5 short questionnaires about what you already notice, 30–45 minutes at your own kitchen table
- Your child sits no test and gets no score: nothing to schedule, nothing for them to dread
- You do the answering, the AI does the writing, and a person reviews it before it reaches you
- Access all 40+ courses instantly: reading, math, focus, processing and more, with new ones added regularly
Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
