Abacus Educational Services, About Us

About Us

We are a family. Both parents are credentialed teachers (I mention this only for the benefit of those misguided readers who consider that to be significant) with many years of secondary and college teaching experience (as likely to be a liability as an endorsement, depending upon one's approach). Our children have never been coerced into studying, practicing, or producing, but have done all of these readily, voluntarily, and with enthusiasm. Our eldest is now 17, holds an AA college degree, and a full time university student.

This site is intended to provide information and resources to homeschoolers and other students everywhere. It consists largely of material we have developed and collected for use with our children and the many other homeschoolers we have taught in informal classes held at Excellence in Education (EIE), the definitive homeschooling center in Monrovia California.

Much of our focus has been upon test preparation for the PSAT, CHSPE, SAT, and college placement. Apart from exam scores and a few other accomplishments such as awards, publications, etc., it's hard for homeschoolers to establish credible academic credentials. Our local JC has just adopted a policy of refusing to enroll homeschoolers younger than 18. Outscoring the public school grads is a good way to counter these misconceptions and the homeschoolers of EIE have, as a group, done that handily.

In response to concern about new developments in the SAT exam starting in spring 2005, we have written "SAT Practice: The New Verbal Section." Our site also has lots of other reference material on writing skills and testing including Writing Skills Playsheets developed for traditional and on-line classes, vocabulary crosswords, language reference, and an extensive annotated list of online and book resources. Please see our SAT site. We also have a children's book section including full text downloads, excerpts, and reviews of children's literature which exemplifies the use of the English language as an art form.

For anyone wishing more information about homeschooling, please see our homeschooling resource page. We particularly recommend the book Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto as well as his other works, and our article, Homeschooling as a Way of Life.
--K.T.